Cactus Alkaloids. II. Condensation of Mescaline with Formaldehyde by the Eschweiler—Clarke Reaction
Journal of the American Chemical Society January 1, 1952 J.a. Rodríguez Castrillón 10 citations
The Eschweiler-Clarke reaction, a reductive methylation using formaldehyde and formic acid, was applied to mescaline, a cactus alkaloid. The reaction produced N-methylmescaline and N,N-dimethylmescaline. The products were isolated and characterized, demonstrating that this condensation method can be used to modify the mescaline molecule. The work provides a synthetic route to N-alkylated derivatives of mescaline, which are of interest for studying structure-activity relationships among cactus alkaloids.