Donald C. Dittmer  Professor Emeritus Organic chemistry dcdittme@syr.edu phone: 315-443-3151 / fax: 315-443-4070 Office: CST 4-010 Education: • B.S., 1950, University of Illinois • Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology • Postdoctoral Fellow, 1954, Harvard University

Research Interests Elemental tellurium, a non-toxic, readily available reagent, is used to perform various organic reactions. The tellurium is reduced to the highly nucleophilic telluride anion which reacts with electrophilic sites in organic compounds which are chosen so that a desired reaction occurs concurrently with the expulsion of black, finely divided, elemental tellurium which can be recovered and reused. Selected Publications Dittmer, D.C.; Li, Q.; Avilov, D.V. Synthesis of Coumarins, 4-Hydroxycoumarins, and 4-Hydroxyquinolinones by Tellurium-Triggered Cyclizations. J. Org. Chem. 2005, 70, 4682-4686. Avilov, D.V.; Malusare, M.G.; Arslancan, E.; Dittmer, D.C. A Telluride-Triggered Nucleophilic Ring Opening of Monoactivated Cyclopropanes. Org. Lett. 2004, 6, 2225-2228. Dittmer, D.C. Tellurium. Chem. Eng. News 2003, 81 (36), 128. Dittmer, D.C.; Discordia, R.P.; Zhang, Y.; Murphy, C.K.; Kumar, A.; Pepito, A.S.; Wang, Y. A Tellurium Transposition Route to Allylic Alcohols: Overcoming Some Limitations of the Sharpless-Katsuki Asymmetric Epoxidation. J. Org. Chem. 1993, 58, 718-731. » View all Publications