Reduction of an aldehyde or ketone
Hydride adds to the carbonyl carbon, giving the alcohol.
What it needs, and what it gives
- Reaction class
- Reduction
- Any hydride reagent will do this; borohydride is enough and leaves esters and amides alone.
- not stated
- Mechanism
- none written
How it is thought to happen
The transformation is applied and tested, but no canonical pathway has been written for it yet. Rather than generate a plausible-looking set of arrows, the platform offers nothing here. What it does claim — which bonds change — is read from the transformation itself and does not depend on a mechanism.
Try it on your own structures
Enter your reactants in the Reaction Lab. If this transformation matches what you drew, it is applied and the outcome is shown next to the records that back it — with the count of documented reactions doing the same thing on substrates like yours, rather than a confidence score.
Other reduction transformations
Reductive amination
The imine forms and is reduced in the same pot, giving the amine.
Alkene hydrogenation
Hydrogen adds across a double bond, turning an alkene into an alkane.
Reduction of an ester
The ester is taken to the primary alcohol, releasing the alcohol of the ester.
Reduction of an amide
The carbonyl is removed entirely, leaving the amine.
Reduction of a nitro group
A nitroarene is reduced to the aniline.