Acetylacrylic acid

Scheme 34 shows the synthesis of the bc portion (336), which possessed three of the nine asymmetric centers present in cobyric acid. Retrosynthesis determined that (336) could be obtained, via sulfide contraction, from the two intermediates (337) and (338). Ring c was synthesized from (+)-camphor quinone (not shown). Ring b (337) was obtained from /3-methyI-/3-acetylacrylic acid (339), the two adjacent chiral centers being generated in the required relative orientation by a Diels-Alder cycloaddition with butadiene in the presence of tin(IV) chloride. Fractional crystallization served to resolve the diastereomeric a-phenethylamine salts derived from them, eventually affording the compound (340). Oxidation with chromic acid cleaved the double bond in (340) and one of the newly generated... 

Attempts have also been made338 346 to find a theoretical explanation of the stereo or positional selectivity in the first stage of the heterodiene synthesis, especially in the interaction between 5-ethoxy-4-methyloxazole and asymmetric dienophiles, e.g., /9-acetylacrylic acid and its ethyl ester. ir-Electron density calculations for the diene and dienophile molecules by the HMO method indicate the formation of the 4-acetylpyridine derivative (187) from ethyl /3-acetylacrylate, while the opposite orientation would be expected in the reaction with the free acid, giving a substituted 5-acetylpyridine as the main product. Indeed, 5-ethoxy-4-methyloxazole on condensation with ethyl /3-acetylacrylate affords only 187, while in the condensation with /3-acetylacrylic acid, only 2-methyl-3-hydroxy-5-acetylpyridine (188) is isolated.338 348... 

Shaw, E. A synthesis of protoanemonin. The tautomerism of acetylacrylic acid and of peni-dllic acid. /. Am. Chem. Soc. 1946, 68, 2510-2513. 

Methods of determination of the configuration of bicyclo[2,2,l]-heptanols have been reviewed. The platinum-catalysed oxidation of bicyclo-[2,2,l]heptanediols, whose n.m.r. spectra are discussed, gives ° a number of different diketones and hydroxy-ketones. The n.m.r. spectra of adducts of cyclopentadiene with a-methyl-P-acetylacrylic acid, and of dimers of substituted cyclopentadienes, are noted. 

Levulinic acid is formed by the treatment of six-carbon sugar carbohydrates from starch or lignocellulosics with acids, or by add treatment plus a reductive step of five-carbon sugars derived from hemicellulose. Levulinic add can serve as a building block for the synthesis of many derivatives of interest may be the selective oxidation to succinic and acrylic add. [i-Acetylacrylic add could be used in the production of new acrylate polymers. 

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