Hydrochloric Acid → 2-Chloro-3-(4-hydroxymethyl-phenyl)-propionic acid methyl ester

Participants

Reaction Conditions

Reaction Steps

To a solution of the (4-amino phenyl) methanol (18.47 g, 0.15 mol) in acetone (400 mL) and methanol (200 mL) was added conc. HCl (54.69 g, 1.5 mol) followed by the dropwise addition of an aqueous solution of NaNO2 (11.38 g, 0.165 mol) in water (50 mL) under ice bath cooling. The mixture was stirred for 1 h at 0° C. The ice bath was removed and the methyl acrylate (64.56 g, 0.75 mol) was added followed by CuI (4.28 g, 0.022 mol). After being stirred for 6 h at ambient temperature, the mixture was diluted with sat. aq. NaHCO3 solution and extracted with EtOAc. The combined organic layers were dried (MgSO4) and the solvent was subsequently evaporated under reduced. The remaining crude product was purified by chromatography. The crude product was purified by flash chromatography using DCM/MeOH 95:5 as the eluent to afford the product was obtained as an oil (13.8 g, 32%). 1H NMR (400 MHz, CDCl3): δ 7.24 (d, 2H), 7.19 (d, 2H), 4.59-4.63 (m, 2H), 4.42 (t, 1H), 3.72 (s, 3H), 3.36-3.31 (dd, 1H), 3.17-3.12 (dd, 1H), 1.87 (s, 1H).

Provenance & Evidence