Facile Microwave-assisted Synthesis of 9,10-Dihydro-9,10-ethanoanthracene-11-carboxylic acid Methyl Ester.docVIP

Molecules 2005, 10, 1409-1412 molecules ISSN 1420-3049 Facile Microwave-assisted Synthesis of 9,10-Dihydro-9,10- ethanoanthracene-11-carboxylic acid Methyl Ester Weerachai Phutdhawong 1,* and Duang Buddhasukh 2 1 Department of Chemistry, Maejo University, San Sai, Chiang Mai, 50290, Thailand. Tel. +66 53 873651, Fax +66 53 878225. 2 Department of Chemistry, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, 50202, Thailand. * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; e-mail: weerachai@mju.ac.th or phutdhawong@ Received: 16 August 2005; in revised form: 19 August 2005 / Accepted: 23 August 2005 / Published: 30 November 2005 Abstract: A facile, high yielding synthesis of 9,10-dihydro-9,10-ethano- anthracene-11- carboxylic acid methyl ester using a modified commercial domestic microwave oven is reported. Keywords: 9,10-Dihydro-9,10-ethanoanthracene-11-carboxylic acid methyl ester; modified microwave reactor. Introduction A considerable amount of research has been devoted to the synthesis of 9,10-dihydro-9,10- ethanoanthracene-11-carboxylic acid methyl ester, a starting material used in many synthetic routes [1]. In 1986, Gedye et al. [2,3] and Giguere et al. [4-6] demonstrated that a wide variety of organic reactions can be conducted very rapidly using microwave irradiation. Since then, several other groups have described accelerated organic reactions [7-9], but no study of the microwave-assisted synthesis of 9,10-dihydro-9,10-ethanoanthracene-11-carboxylic acid methyl ester has been reported. We wish to report herein a facile high yielding synthesis of this compound in a short time using a modified commercial domestic microwave oven controlled via software developed in this laboratory.  Molecules 2005, 10 1410 Results and Discussion In the reaction reported herein we have used an apparatus devised by our group. It consists of a modifi