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Organocatalysis has been recognized as a part of chemical research for a long
time, and it gained significant attention in catalysis in recent decades. Amine catalyst is a
substantial type of organocatalysis, and it is successively employed for the activation of
carbonyl compounds. This manuscript delves into the exploration of a proline-based organocatalyst
for the synthesis of arylidene benzofuranone intermediates, a critical step that
facilitates the subsequent construction of aurone-derived azadienes. In this work, we successfully
reported the synthesis of arylidene benzofuranone intermediates through Aldol
condensation of benzofuranone with different aldehydes enabled by proline-derived organic
catalysts. To achieve this strategy, six examples of amine organocatalysts (A1-A6) were
evaluated to showcase the optimal catalyst for this transformation. Moreover, the arylidene
benzofuranone intermediates were further employed for the synthesis of interesting aurone-derived azadiene
substrates through its reaction with TsNH2. Notably, the using of organocatalyst A6 resulted in the delivery of
the product with the best yield (94% isolated yield). Under the optimized conditions, different aromatic and
heterocyclic containing aldehydes were effectively tolerated to generate the corresponding arylidene benzofuranone
intermediates, which further converted to the azadiene products in high to excellent yield. The
claimed structures were confirmed by the spectral analysis.