Organic letters

A high-yielding preparation of β-ketonitriles

Y Ji, WC Trenkle, JV Vowles

Index: Ji, Yaohui; Trenkle, William C.; Vowles, James V. Organic Letters, 2006 , vol. 8, # 6 p. 1161 - 1163

Full Text: HTML

Citation Number: 42

Abstract

β-Ketonitriles are important precursors for a wide variety of biologically active heterocycles. A facile procedure for the high-yielding acylation of nitrile anions with unactivated esters to provide β-ketonitriles is reported. The procedure is successful with enolizable and nonenolizable esters as well as hindered nitrile anions.