Ammonium [11C]thiocyanate: revised preparation and reactivity studies of a versatile nucleophile for carbon-11 radiolabelling.

Herein we report the preparation of ammonium [11C]thiocyanate via the reaction of [11C]CS2 with ammonia. The [11C]SCN- ion is demonstrated as a potent nucleophile that can be used to readily generate a range of 11C-labelled thiocyanate molecules in high conversions. Furthermore, novel 11C-labelled thiazolone molecules can be easily prepared from the intermediate α-thiocyanatophenones via an acid mediated cyclisation reaction.