The production of N-benzylacetamide-D 2 , the "trapped" ketene equivalent product shown in Scheme 1, was unambiguously confirmed. The observed ESI-HRMS peak at 150.0883 amu is within 0.7 ppm of the calculated value (150.0882 amu). Significantly, the proton-decoupled C NMR spectrum shows a characteristic quintet splitting pattern centered at 20.8 ppm for -CD 2 H, J = 20 Hz, (Figure ).