The first report on chemoselective biguanide-catalyzed henry reaction under neat conditions

Abstract

An efficient synthetic method for direct Henry reaction catalyzed by a biguanide; namely metformin, as an organosuper-base, between a variety of aromatic and aliphatic aldehydes and nitromethane under neat conditions has been developed. Convenient procedure for removal of the catalyst, chemoselective acquiring of β-nitroalcohols as predominant products, as far as possible short reaction time with excellent conversions are advantages of the developed protocol.