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I have been looking everywhere for hours now, and can't find anything on a simple lab reduction of an alcohol to an alkane that doesn't involve any "fancy" reagents such as tosylates, metal catalysts etc.

I would have expected that under acidic circumstances, the oxygen donates an electron to the proton from the acid, and a hydride from a general reducing agent such as LAH or NaBH4 then attaches itself to the carbon, pushing out a molecule of water, and alkane.

However, I have found no proof or mention of the existence of such a reaction. If this is is impossible, then why, and what would be the best general purpose way to reduce an OH to a H

int
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    Of course it's impossible. For ex. https://chemistry.stackexchange.com/questions/15586/hi-p-reduction-mechanism is an option – Mithoron Mar 04 '21 at 14:48
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    If you regard tosylates as fancy reagents then your career in synthetic chemistry is going to be very limited. – Waylander Mar 04 '21 at 15:25

1 Answers1

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May I introduce you to the Barton-McCombie reaction for the reduction of alcohols to alkanes.

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image and further information here

Waylander
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