2,6-Dimethoxy-4-hydroxybenzaldehyde → 3,5-Dimethoxy-4-propylphenol

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Reaction Steps

Anhydrous tetrahydrofuran (36 ml) was added to triphenylphosphine ethyl bromide (12.3 g) prior to stirring at room temperature for 20 minutes. To the resulting mixture was added potassium tert-butoxide (4.5 g), for stirring at room temperature for 30 minutes. Then, 2,6-dimethoxy-4-hydroxybenzaldehyde (3.0 g) was added to the result mixture for stirring at room temperature for 2 hours. The resulting solution was partitioned between ethyl acetate and dilute hydrochloric acid, and the resulting ethyl acetate phase was washed in water and subsequently in an aqueous saturated sodium chloride solution and dried over anhydrous magnesium sulfate, to distill off the solvents under reduced pressure. The residue was purified by silica gel column chromatography (developing solvent:hexane:ethyl acetate=2:1), followed by addition of a catalytic amount of platinum dioxide for hydrogenation, to recover 3,5-dimethoxy-4-propylphenol (1.8 g; yield of 55%). By 2H-NMR (90 MHz, CDCl3), the compound has the peaks shown below.

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