Tetrahedron Letters
Access to densely functionalized naphthalenes by organobase
catalyzed domino reaction of 2-(2-formylaryl)acetophenones with
nitroolefins
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Anuradha Dagar, Soumen Biswas, Shaikh M. Mobin, Sampak Samanta
Discipline of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Indore, Simrol, 452020 Madhya Pradesh, India
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
A series of new functionalized naphthalene derivatives having carbonyl and NO2 groups at C-1 and C-3
positions respectively have been prepared in good yields (63–75%) through a one-pot domino reaction
Received 3 May 2016
Revised 13 June 2016
Accepted 14 June 2016
Available online 16 June 2016
of several 2-(2-formylaryl)acetophenone derivatives with
a variety of aryl/heteroaryl-substituted
2-nitroolefins in EtOH as a green solvent at 75 °C under air using a catalytic amount of DABCO
(30 mol %) as an inexpensive organocatalyst. This pot-economic process is friendly enough to retain
several sensitive functionalities and displays a wide range of substrate scope. Furthermore, the high
yielding synthesis of biologically attractive N-(3-naphthyl-substituted)pyrrole frameworks was
established through our synthetic procedure.
Keywords:
Naphthalene derivatives
Domino
Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Organocatalyst
b-Nitrostyrenes
2-(2-Formylaryl)acetophenones
Naphthalene and its derivatives are one of the most important
classes of organic building blocks. They are frequently found in
numerous natural products and bioactive molecules.1 Importantly,
substituted naphthalene derivatives have shown widespread appli-
cations in chemical domains such as pharmaceuticals,1,2 optical and
electronic materials,3 chiral ligands,4 organic dyes3d etc. Therefore,
the development of a one-pot method for the synthesis of densely
functionalized naphthalene derivatives has gained much attention
in the scientific community.1–4,3d Accordingly, many powerful
strategies have been reported toward the efficient syntheses of
naphthalene derivatives5–10 which include the transition metal-salt
mediated benzannulation reaction of enynals with several alke-
nes6a/alkynes6b,c/enols6c,d/secondary amines,6f condensation of
phenylacetaldehydes with alkynes promoted by several Lewis
(AuCl3/AgSbF6,7a TiCl4,7b GaCl3,7c BF37d)/Brønsted acids (HNTf2),7e
Rh-salts/Cu(OAc)2 mediated oxidative coupling of aryl-boronic
acid with alkynes,8 6-endo intramolecular hydroarylation of
toxic metal-salts as catalysts, harmful and volatile solvents
(especially chlorinated solvents), stoichiometric amounts of
external oxidants, harsh reaction conditions, poor atom-economy,
and yields. Therefore, it is necessary to develop an alternative
green protocol for the synthesis of poly-functionalized
naphthalene under metal-free conditions.
In our group, we have been interested to explore the organocat-
alytic domino Michael–Henry reaction for the construction of
six-membered cyclic rings involving nitroolefins as Michael
acceptors.12 Herein, we further disclose a simple, convenient, and
eco-friendly one-pot technique for the access to poly-functional-
ized naphthalenes through a domino Michael-Henry-dehydration-
aromatization reaction involving 2-(2-formylaryl)acetophenones
and several aryl/heteroaryl-substituted 2-nitroolefins in EtOH at
75 °C under air using a catalytic amount of DABCO (30 mol %) as
an inexpensive organic base.
At the beginning, we chose the model reaction between
compound 1a and 2a in THF using DABCO (30 mol %) under air at
room temperature to explore the optimal reaction conditions. After
b-aryl-a
-alkynylcinnamates9 and [2+2+2] cyclotrimerization of
alkynes.10 Alternatively, 2-(2-oxo-2-arylethyl)benzaldehydes11
have been used as donor–acceptors in the [4+2] cycloaddition
reaction with alkynes or nitroolefins catalyzed by FeCl3 or pyrro-
lidine-DMAP as reported by Zhu11a and Xu11b groups respectively.
Despite the great history on naphthalene syntheses, they suffer
one or more practical problems such as use of expensive and
24 h,
a trace amount of targeted product 3aa was isolated
(5% yield, entry 1). The structure was confirmed by its spectro-
scopic data (1H NMR, 13C NMR, and HRMS). Interestingly, 45% yield
of 3aa was obtained after reaction at 60 °C for 16 h (entry 2).
Hoping better yield of 3aa, we performed this domino reaction in
various common solvents namely 2-MeTHF, EtOH, water (entries
3–5, green solvents), toluene, DMSO, and DMF at 75 °C. Results
showed that the obtained yield (72%, entry 3) of 3aa in ethanol
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Corresponding author.
0040-4039/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.