[anneches]

Hi,

We are undergraduate students from the University of the Philippines, Manila. We are doing a special project for our Organic Chemistry subject and we were referred to this forum by Albert.

Can you please help us explain the reaction mechanisms of caffeine and meperidine (pethidine)? The following are the links to the websites for the reaction mechanisms of the molecules mentioned above:

http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/wiki/images/5/50/Caffsyn1.jpg
http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/wiki/images/1/11/Caffsyn2.gif
http://holivo.pharmacy.uiowa.edu/morphine/chsix/mepersynth.html

We would greatly appreciate any help that you could give us as soon as you can.

Thank you very much.

Anne and Cheska
annequero@yahoo.com
cheskalotr@yahoo.com

[AWK]

Mechanisms you can find in any university organic textbooks.

1 - (amine) alkylation
2 - nitration (I think much better is nitrosylation in this cazse (introducing NO with HNO2), next step reduction, acylation od amine, reductive cyclization (reduction+cyclization), (heterocyclic amine) alkylation
3 - benzylation with C6H5CH2Cl, OH to Cl exchange with PCl5 (POCl3, PCl3), Alkylation (cyclization), alkoholysis of nitrile(esterification), (amine) alkylation