Potassium Hydroxide → 2-Benzyl-malonic acid monoethyl ester

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Reaction Steps

Benzylmalonic acid diethyl ester (10 g, 40 mmol) in 25 mL of ethanol is cooled to 0° C. Potassium hydroxide (2.5 g, 40 mmol) dissolved in 25 mL of ethanol is added dropwise over 50 minutes. The cooling bath is removed and the mixture is stirred for one additional hour. The volume of solvent is reduced by evaporation in vacuo, and the residual solution is poured into aqueous sodium bicarbonate solution and extracted twice with ethyl acetate. The aqueous phase is acidified with aqueous 10% HCl and extracted twice with ethyl acetate. The organic phase is dried with a brine extraction, filtered from anhydrous sodium sulfate, and concentrated in vacuo, yielding 8.08 g of the title compound as a colorless oil.

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