A Convenient Procedure for the Preparation of Dihydrocarvone

Abstract

Dihydrocarvone (3) has proven to be an extremely useful starting material for the synthesis of a number of natural products.¹ Recently we required substantial quantities of 3 for studies directed toward the synthesis of several sesquiterpenes. Although a variety of procedures have been reported² for the conversion of readily available³ carvone (1) into dihydrocarvone (3), we desired to utilize a procedure for the large scale preparation of 3 which would avoid the use of large amounts of liquid ammonia or expensive hydride reagents.