“…Interestingly, we recently found that 5 was a side-product of the coupling of (ferrocenylmethyl)trimethylammonium iodide and 1,4,7-(triformyl)-1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane to give 1-(ferrocenemethyl)-4,7,10-(triformyl)-1,4,7, 10-tetraazacyclododecane in aqueous solution [27]. A possible pathway for the formation of 3-5 is presented in Scheme 1 and involves the simultaneous formation of 3 and the carbocation 6 which has been previously reported to be stabilised in acidic media [28][29][30][31]. Interestingly, the fact that both 3 and 4 were formed suggests that the cleavage of ferrocenyl group is faster than the cleavage of the tert-butyl group as 2 would have been isolated if the cleavage of the ester was faster.…”