A mixture of 5.2 g of 6-bromo-2-heptyloxynaphthalene, 25 ml of triethylamine, 4.3 ml of methyl acrylate, 0.072 g of palladium acetate and 0.392 g of tri-o-tolylphosphine is refluxed for 16 hours. The reaction mixture is then cooled and is partitioned between ethyl acetate and water and the organic phase is washed with water, dried over magnesium sulfate, filtered and evaporated down. The residue is chromatographed over 250 g of silica gel using toluene/ethyl acetate (3:1) and then crystallized from toluene. This gives methyl (E)-3-(heptyloxynaphth-2-yl)acrylate.
