imidazole was stirred in 500 ml acetonitrile the reaction mixture initially at 0 u00b0 c was allowed to warm to room temperature overnight and then heated at 65 u00b0 c for 2 hours after the addition of an equal volume of toluene the reaction mixture was filtered and the solvent removed by rotovaping from the filtrate to give crude product an aliquot of the crude product was chromatographed on silica gel to give n hydroxyacetyl alanine ethyl ester 61 yield 1 h nmr 300 mhz dmso d 6 tms u03b41 19 t 3h j 7 1 hz u03b41 31 d 3h j 7 2 hz u03b43 83 s 2h u03b44 09 d u00d7 q 2h j 1 2 and 7 1 hz irradiation in the methyl region eliminates the smaller coupling constant u03b44 32 d u00d7 q 1h j 7 3 and 7 3 and u03b4 8 31 br d 1h j 7 2 hz 13 c nmr 75 mhz cdcl 3 tms 13 59 17 54 47 31 61 02 61 48 and 172 17 u03b1 25 d 4 1 u00b0 u00b1 0 4 u00b0 c 1 99 chcl 3 hrms calcd for c 7 h 14 no 4 m h 176 0923 found 176 0921 a 10 solution w v in toluene of n hydroxyacetyl alanine ethyl ester was passed through a quartz tube containing 1 0 ml of quartz catalyst a on top of 0 5 ml of sa 3232 catalyst b the feed flow rate was 1 0 ml hr nitrogen flow rate 29 ml min stp and the reaction.