Diboron reagents in the deoxygenation of nitrones.

Bnep efficiently promotes the N-O cleavage of nitrones to form imines in very high yields a simple, efficient, sustainable, functional group tolerant and scalable protocol. The reaction occurs in the absence of additives through a concerted mechanism. We demonstrated that DMPO and TEMPO, typically used as radical traps, are also deoxygenated by diboron reagents, which demonstrates their limitation as mechanistic probes.