The
selective synthesis of 5,6-dihydropyrimidin-4(3H)-one
scaffold (precursor of dihydrouracil) was a very difficult
synthetic challenge that, so far, has not been achieved. For the first
time, in this paper, green, selective and high-yields approach to
40 novel 5,6-dihydropyrimidin-4(3H)-ones (DHPMs)
by one-pot reaction of aldehydes, Meldrum’s acid and isothioureas
under solvent-free conditions, in the presence of water, since an
additive is presented. In the majority of cases, introduced methodology
gave an unprecedented tautomer-selective fashion toward targeted compounds
with excellent tautomeric purity (>99.9%), which reached 100% in
few
cases. The molecular structure of the five compounds has been determined
by X-ray crystallography. In each one of them, very short length for
the corresponding N2–C1 bond was noticed, making them especially
interesting from a structural standpoint. This experimental fact can
imply a highly localized electron π density in this part of
each heterocyclic ring. The obtained experimental results, which are
determined from NMR and ESI-MS study, indicate that this Biginelli-type
reaction smoothly proceeds in a one-pot mode, pointing to the three-step
tandem process, proceeding via the Knoevenagel, aza-Michael, and retro-Diels–Alder
reactions. The presented strategy also had the following advantages:
reduction amount of waste, excellent values of green chemistry metrics
(cEF, EcoScale and GCIS), and it is the first eco-friendly strategy
toward the DHPMs scaffold.