Congratulations to Thomas for his latest work, just published in Organic Chemistry Frontiers: “A multifaceted approach towards understanding the peculiar behavior of (a)-hydroxyiminophosphonates”!
A strongly interdisciplinary approach involving complementary analytical tools (NMR, XRD, MS, IM-MS) as well as computational chemistry were required to shed light on the peculiar differences between the E and Z isomers of (a)-hydroxyiminophosphonates, a useful class of building blocks. Indeed, a distinct chemoselectivity toward protonation was observed across a library of 16 derivatives. This challenging assessment of the competition between the phosphonate and the amino moeities will hopefully provide a more robust understanding of (a)-hydroxyiminophosphonates and facilitate their use.
Shout-out to co-lead author Christopher Kune, Loïc Quinton from ULiege and Kristof Van Hecke from UGent for their contributions to this study.