Known as a Lewis acid which acts as a natural catalyst, bentonite can be used to produce several arylidene  (thio) barbituric  acid  derivatives  through  conducting  a  Knoevenagel  reaction  between aromatic aldehydes and (thio) barbituric acid. Water is considered as the medium for this reaction and the results are at arange of good to excellent over a reasonable reaction time. This method i...

The use of natural resources as a chemical feedstock for the synthesis of added-value products is gaining interest; as such we report an environmentally friendly method for the synthesis of para-menthane-3,8-diol from natural citronellal oil in 96% yield, under solvent free aqueous conditions. The acylation of para-menthane-3,8-diol with various acid anhydrides over polymer-supported scandium t...

The first catalytic acylation of alcohols with a thiol ester present in Wittig reagents under neutral conditions catalyzed by the Cu(II) salt through a push-pull mechanism is reported. Furthermore, a new methodology for the one-pot lactonization of acyloins by a copper catalyst is developed. The synthetic utility of this method for the synthesis of natural products is shown.

α,β-Unsaturated carbonyl compounds are versatile intermediates in the synthesis of pharmaceuticals and biologically active compounds. Here, we report the discovery and application of Pd(DMSO)(2)(TFA)(2) as a catalyst for direct dehydrogenation of cyclohexanones and other cyclic ketones to the corresponding enones, using O(2) as the oxidant. The substrate scope includes heterocyclic ketones and ...

An improved synthesis of the cyanthiwigin natural product core enabled by new catalytic technology is reported. The key double catalytic enantioselective alkylation has been reoptimized using a recently developed protocol employing low loadings of palladium catalyst, thereby facilitating large-scale production of the tricyclic cyanthiwigin framework. Additionally, preparation of the penultimate...

A highly enantioselective (>95% ee) strategy to affect the desymmetrization of a maleimide has been performed by temporary attachment to an anthracene template followed by asymmetric reduction with an oxazaborolidine catalyst. A stereoablative over-reduction process was partially responsible for the high levels of enantioselectivity. Exemplification of the strategy by stereoselective functional...

This review presents examples from the chemical literature of syntheses of bridged-polycyclic products via C-H bond insertion by carbenes and nitrenes. Applications to natural product synthesis, a description of the essential elements in substrate-controlled reactions, and mechanistic details of transformations are presented. Overall, these transformations allow the construction of important ri...

Palladium-catalyzed alkynylation has emerged as one of the most reliable methods for the synthesis of alkynes which are often used in natural product syntheses and material science. An efficient method for coupling alkynyltrifluoroborates with various aryl bromides in the presence of a palladium catalyst has been developed using microwave irradiation. The microwave reactions are rapid and effic...

We report an efficient Mukaiyama-aldol reaction of tryptanthrin with fluorinated enol silyl ethers, which is carried out in methanol without the use of any catalyst. This method is applied to the total synthesis of the difluoro analogues of the natural product Phaitanthrin B.