Dedicated to Professor K. C. Nicolaou on the occasion of his 74th birthday
4-Cyano-3-oxotetrahydrothiophene (c-THT) has much more to offer than just a platform to various heterocyclic scaffolds. This solid, bench-stable and commercially available reagent can be readily transformed into thioglycolic acid and acrylonitrile upon simple addition of a hydroxide anion. This interesting feature enables its use as a particularly versatile acrylonitrile anion surrogate.
Key words
acrylonitrile - surrogate - heterocycle - alkylation - Michael addition - palladium - retro-Dieckmann