N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) is frequently used as an aprotic solvent in chemical transformations in laboratories of academia as well as in those of chemical industry. In the present review, we will reveal that DMF is actually something much more than a solvent. It is a unique chemical since, as well as being an effective polar aprotic solvent, it can play three other important roles in organic chemistry. It can be used as a reagent, a catalyst, and a stabilizer.

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Oxalyl chloride, (COCl)2, as an inexpensive commercially available chemical is one of the most versatile applicable organic reagents in chemical transformations. It is also employed extensively in various chemical industries. It is employed in various chemical transformations such as chlorination, oxidation, reduction, dehydration, decarboxylation, and formylation reactions as well as ring cleavage of epoxides. During the past decades, numerous procedures using (COCl)2 as reagent have been developed and published. However, its importance has largely been overlooked by the absence of a comprehensive review in chemical literature dealing with its application in organic transformations and its utilization in the chemical industry. This Review aims to provide an overview for the applications of oxalyl chloride in organic synthesis, including its physical properties, synthesis, as well as its unique roles as the reagent in organic reactions, covering the literature over the past 103 years (from 1916 to date).

XtalFluor-E, [Et2NSF2]BF4, is best known as a useful, versatile and inexpensive commercially available reagent for the deoxyfluorination of carbonyl compounds and alcohols. Although XtalFluor-E is commonly used in combination with an exogenous fluoride source as a deoxofluorinating reagent, it has also been widely employed in other chemical transformations such as dehydration, cyclodehydration, ring expansion, formylation, and protofunctionalization, etc. This Review aims to provide an overview for the applications of XtalFluor-E as a reagent in organic synthesis, including its physical properties, futures, and its unique roles beyond than being just as a deoxofluorinating reagent in organic transformation.

The Biginelli reaction, involving a three-component reaction of an aromatic aldehyde, urea and ethyl acetoacetate, has emerged as an extremely useful synthetic tool to organic chemists for the synthesis of 3,4-dihydropyrimidine-2-(1H)-ones and related heterocyclic compounds. In the past decades, the asymmetric variants of this reaction have been at the forefront of investigations in several research groups. In 2013, we highlighted the developments occurred in the asymmetric version of the Biginelli reaction. This review article focuses on the recent developments of asymmetric Biginelli reaction covers the literature going back to 2012.