One-pot synthesis of α,α-disubstituted Aryl-1-ethanones via the Wittig-Horner reaction

A one-pot methodology for the synthesis of α,α-disubstituted aryl-1-ethanones via the Wittig-Horner reaction has been developed and described in this manuscript. Both aryl/alkyl and dialkyl α-branched arylethanone were obtained in high yields (up to 96%) without the use of any metal catalysts. A total of 14 α,α-disubstituted arylethanone derivatives were synthesized based on this simple method that easily converts the carbonyl carbon (sp²) into the sp³ carbon. This versatile method is expected to further promote the use of substituted ketones as synthetic building blocks to construct a variety of α-branched aryl ketones.