The Baylis-Hillman reaction: Our vision and experience

Abstract

SpeechTo meet the demands of emerging trends, the present day organic chemistry emphasizes the need for discovering new reactions or strategies for construction of carbon-carbon bonds mainly involving the concepts of atom-economy, organocatalysis, and easy generation of useful molecules containing proximal functional groups for assembling the required carbon frameworks. The Baylis-Hillman (also known as the Morita-Baylis-Hillman) reaction is one such organocatalytic atom-economy reaction developed in recent years, for the construction of carbon-carbon bonds leading to the production of diverse classes of molecules having several functional groups in close proximity. It is a three component atom-economy carbon-carbon bond forming reaction between the α-position of activated alkenes and electrophiles under the influence of a catalyst (most commonly an organic catalyst). 1-8These multi-functional molecules, which are usually known as Baylis-Hillman (BH) adducts, showed enormous utility in many directions of synthetic and mechanistic chemistry, clearly demonstrating the power of proximity of the functional groups in molecules. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] We have been systematically working on various aspects of this reaction for the last 29 years with the main objective of understanding and developing the Baylis-Hillman reaction as a useful and powerful tool in synthetic chemistry. [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21] We have in fact, contributed significantly to its growth with respect to all the three essential components.