In the presence of amines, the degradation of glutaconaldehyde in acidic medium can be prevented. By exploitation of this behavior, primary amines are transformed into their corresponding pyridinium salts, including those substrates that remain unreactive toward the Zincke salt, which is the reagent typically used to perform this transformation. The use of glutaconaldehyde also allows control of the nature of the counterion of the pyridinium with no need for additional salt metathesis reaction.
This work has been published in The Journal of Organic Chemistry: