Concurrent esterification and N-acetylation of amino acids with orthoesters: A useful reaction with interesting mechanistic implications.

The concurrent esterification and N-acetylation of amino acids has been studied with triethyl orthoacetate (TEOA) and triethyl orthoformate (TEOF). In a surprising finding, only one equivalent of TEOA in refluxing toluene was necessary to convert L-proline and L-phenylalanine to the corresponding N-acetyl ethyl esters in good yield. The same transformation using TEOF was not effective.