A possible route for such an epimerisation, could be to take advantage of the benzylic position and to use a transition metal, the most obvious being palladium. When aminal 2 was treated with 10% Pd(OH) 2 , in i-PrOH, under a hydrogen atmosphere, a rapid reaction took place, and, within 6 h at room temperature, all of the starting material disappeared in favor of a new very polar compound. This new compound was the monoformamide 3 of the starting ...
