One-pot preparation of phenylpropanoid esters co-catalyzed by boric acid and piperidine

Abstract

Phenylpropanoid esters, especially those with hydroxyl and/or methoxy groups on the benzene ring, are important medicinal chemicals or intermediates. They are usually prepared by esterification of their corresponding substituted cinnamic acids with various alcohols. However, the esterification procedures often suffer from environmentally hazardous problems when sulfuric acid is used as a catalyst or suffer from unsatisfactory yields and expensive raw material when enzyme is applied as a catalyst. In this paper, a convenient one-pot process for preparing various phenylpropanoid esters from substituted benzaldehydes bearing hydroxyl and/or methoxyl groups has been developed. The alcohols react first with malonic acid catalyzed by boric acid to form monomalonate, then without separation, let the resultant mixture immediately react with the injected various substituted benzaldehydes in the presence of piperidine to afford the desired esters with moderate to good yields.