Ethyl formate, mixed Claisen condensation reaction

Ethyl formate, mixed Claisen condensation reaction of,... 

The mixed Claisen condensation of two different esters is similar to the mixed aldol condensation of two different aldehydes or ketones (Section 23.5). Mixed Claisen reactions are successful only when one of the two ester components has no a hydrogens and thus can t form an enolate ion. For example, ethyl benzoate and ethyl formate can t form enolate ions and thus can t serve as donors. They can, however, act as the electrophilic acceptor components in reactions with other ester anions to give mixed /3-keto ester products. 

Mixed Claisen-like reactions can also be carried out between an ester and a ketone, resulting in the synthesis of a jS-diketone. The reaction works best when the ester component has no a hydrogens and thus can t act as the nucleophilic donor. For example, ethyl formate gives high yields in mixed Claisen condensations with ketones. 

If cyclopentanone and base are mixed first, aldol self-condensation of cyclopentanone can occur before ethyl formate is added. If both carbonyl components are mixed together before adding base, the more favorable mixed Claisen condensation occurs with less competition from the aldol self-condensation reaction. 

The Claisen reaction is a carbonyl condensation that occurs between two ester components and gives a /3-keto ester product. Mixed Claisen condensations between two different esters are successful only when one of the two partners has no acidic a hydrogens (ethyl benzoate and ethyl formate, for instance) and thus can function only as the acceptor partner. Intramolecular Claisen condensations, called Dieckmann cyclization reactions, provide excellent syntheses of five- and six-membered cyclic /3-keto esters starting from 1,6- and 1,7-diesters. 

Apart from sotolon, the other compounds in Fig. 5 can be explained as the products of a Maillard reaction, and their carbon skeletons simply originate from the active Amadori intermediate in other words, they still preserve the straight carbon chain structure of monosaccharides. In spite of being a simple Cg lactone, sotolon has a branched carbon skeleton, which implies another formation process in the Maillard reaction. Sulser e al.(6) reported that ethyl sotolon (ll) was prepared from threonine with sulfuric acid, and that 2-oxobutyric acid, a degradation product of threonine, was a better starting material to obtain II. This final reaction is a Claisen type of condensation, which would proceed more smoothly under alkaline conditions. As we(lO) obtained II from 2-oxobutyric acid (see figure 6) with a high yield in the presence of potassium carbonate in ethanol, a mixed condensation of 2-oxobutyric and 2-oxo-propanoic (pyruvic) acids was attempted under the same conditions, and a mixture of sotolon (22% yield) and II were obtained however, the... 

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