Lithium Ammonia Birch reduction is it more d than l?

[Heisenberg5994]

Honest question

 

[AuTiSTiC]

id rather use sodium its less expensive and D or L all depends on the chemical reduced and the mechanism, it takes a little of problem solving our teacher used to gave use these question but a few where able to answer, aint easy and sometimes cant be told id not by experiments

 

[Osmosis Vanderwaal]

It's true, the birch reduction isn't just for drugs, it is used an many synths, but you'd be remiss to use Na because the product of the birch reaction is 11% with sodium and 75% with lithium . Lithium is free from old batteries and sodium metal is expensive. The birch has 2 simultaneous reactions going on . If you use ephedrine/pseudoephedrine or any chiral precursor, you will get 95%+ the isomer with the chirality of the precursors. If your precursor is racemic, your product isnracemic