A hydrazine- and phosgene-free synthesis of tetrazinanones, precursors to 1,5-dialkyl-6-oxoverdazyl radicals.

A complementary approach to published synthetic methods for tetrazinanones, precursors to verdazyl radicals, is described herein. This approach uses carbohydrazide, a commercially available reagent, as a common starting material. Unlike previous methods described in the literature, this synthetic scheme does not rely on phosgene, phosgene substitutes, or the limited pool of commercially available monosubstituted hydrazines for its execution.