Question

Name the product when b reacts with zinc amalgam and hydrochloric acid.

Answer 1

In a blatant plug for the Reagent Guide and the Reagents App for iPhone, each Friday  I profile a different reagent that is commonly encountered in Org 1/ Org 2.  

What it’s used for: For our purposes, zinc amalgam has one important use: in the Clemmensen reduction of ketones to alkanes.

Similar to: The reagent has essentially the same effect as the Wolf-Kishner reaction, although it is done under acidic conditions.

Examples:  

Zinc amalgam (Zn-Hg) is most commonly used in the Clemmensen reduction, which takes ketones adjacent to aromatic rings down to the alkane. This can be useful in, say, after the Friedel-Crafts acylation when you want to obtain a straight chain alkane that would otherwise rearrange.