Cyanoacetylenic alcohols, R1R2C(OH)C≡C-CN, the closest derivatives of cyanoacetylene, an interstellar abundant molecule, are now becoming acknowledgeable in modern organic synthesis which tends to mimic nature. Highly reactive C≡C and C≡N bonds in close vicinity of the hydroxyl group makes these molecules a chemical trinity of mutually influencing functions ensuring an endless number of chemical transformations.
All reactions of cyanoacetylenic alcohols parallel modern organic synthesis, being biomimetic. They do not need transition metals (and in most cases, the metals at all except for physiologically indispensible Na+, K+), proceed at ambient temperature and often in aqueous media. Fundamentally, these reactions are 100% atom-economic because they are almost exclusively addition processes.
Usually, in the cyanoacetylenic alcohols, cyano, acetylene and hydroxyl functions behave as inseparable entity providing the multiple functionalizations of the forming molecules. This allows hydroxyl, carbonyl, carboxylic, imino, amino, amido, cyanoamido, cyano, various P-containing, ether and ester functions, along with the double bonds and different fundamental heterocycles (furans, furanones, pyrazoles, oxazoles, pyridines, pyrimidines, purins, etc.) and diverse polycyclic systems to be integrated in a one molecular architecture.
This review focuses on analysis and generalization of the knowledge accumulated in the chemistry of these cyanoacetylenic alcohols, mostly over the past 15 years.
Supramolecular Approaches for Taming the Chemo- and Regiochemistry of C60 Addition Reactions
