• "Unfortunately, the synthetic community has become infatuated with using acronyms even for reagents where no valid reason exists (i.e. to save space in a scheme). The following commonly used acronyms, which save almost no space and in some cases are actually longer than a chemical formula readable by any organic chemist, serve only to confuse the non-specialist reader and are not used in this collection. Below are given the acronym, the formulation typically used in the synthetic schemes. A number of trade names are unfortunately used by the synthetic community, and these are also avoided when possible, since they do not have the staying power or comprehensibility of real names (e.g. Superhydride, Selectride, Vitride, Red-Al, Freon, etc)."

    Acronym Schemes Reagent Index
    DMS SMe2 Me2S
    DCM CH2Cl2 Not indexed unless reactant
    DIBAL iBu2AlH AlHiBu2
    DIPEA NEtiPr2 NEtiPr2
    HMDS HN(SiMe3)2 NH(SiMe3)2
    KHMDS KN(SiMe3)2 KN(SiMe3)2
    LAH LiAIH4 AlH4Li
    LDA LiNiPr2 LiNiPr2
    LIHMDS LiN(SiMes)2 LiN(SiMes)2
    PPTS TsOH•Py TsOH•Py
    TBAF Bu4N+ F– Fluoride, Bu4N+
    TEA NEt3 NEt3
    TES SiEt3 SiEt3-X
    TIPS SiiPr3 SiiPr3-X
    TMS SiMe3 SiMe3-X
    TBS (tBuMe2Si) and TBDPS (tBuPh2Si) are used only very rarely when a scheme becomes too cluttered.

  • lf the aldol reaction is considered a name reaction, and all forms are counted, it would be at the top. The Ozonolysis reaction, selenoxide eliminations, olefin metathesis reactions, and reductive aminations would be in the top twenty, depending on how broadly they are defined. Several famous name reactions are not in the top thirty: Reformatsky, Baeyer-Villiger, Hofmann elimination, Dieckman condensation. Others were barely used at all: Cope rearrangement, Darzens condensation, Clemmensen reduction, Favorskii rearrangement, Hunsdiecker reaction, Cope elimination, Beckman rearrangement, Meerwein-Ponndorf-Verley reduction, Gabriel synthesis, Stetter reaction, Hofmann rearrangement, and Haloform reaction.

    Index entries:

    1. Over 693 total syntheses have been analyzed.
    2. There are over 15,700 Keyword index entries.
    3. There are over 12,700 Reagent index entries.

    This collection represents perhaps 2-5% of total syntheses published