Acidic Ionic Liquid–Catalyzed Highly Efficient Reaction of Indoles to α,β‐Unsaturated Ketones

Abstract

A novel method for the Michael reaction of indoles to α,β‐unsaturated ketones catalyzed by acidic ionic liquid is reported. We obtained the corresponding products in excellent yields in the presence of [hmim]HSO₄. Development of this method has resulted in a new protocol for the synthesis of β‐indolylketones.

Keywords:

• Acidic ionic liquid
• indole
• Michael reaction
• α,β‐unsaturated ketone

Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by the Key Laboratory of Organic Synthesis of Jiangsu Province at Suzhou University (No. JSK008), the National Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (No. BK2004038), the National Science Foundation of China (Nos. 20172039 and 20472062), and Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Fine Petrochemical Technology (KF0402).