Treatment of anthracene or benzyl acrylate with magnesium turnings for Grignard reaction in the presence of various acid chlorides in N,N-dimethylformamide at room temperature brought about one-pot reductive double C-acylation or tandem intermolecular cycloaddition to give the corresponding C-diacylated products in satisfactory yields.

A novel one-pot double C-acylation of anthracene or benzyl acrylates is achieved by electron transfer from Mg-metal to obtain 9,10-diacylated 9,10-dihydroanthracenes or keto esters of type (X) and (XI), respectively. -(MATSUNAMI, M.; SAKAI, N.; MORIMOTO, T.; MAEKAWA, H.; NISHIGUCHI*, I.; Synlett 2007, 5, 769-774; Dep. Chem., Nagaoka Univ. Technol., Nagaoka, Niigata 940-21, Japan; Eng.) -Mais 30-071