A perspective on aldoximes as platform chemicals

Abstract

Primary amines and nitriles play a central role in almost every branch of the chemical industry, and many synthetic strategies exist to obtain them. The major drawbacks of these existing approaches are low selectivities and highly toxic reagents like hydrogen cyanide. This article presents alternative catalytic routes based on aldoximes to address those challenges and outlines what needs to be done to implement aldoximes into a greener amine and nitrile production.