Abstract
An important building block, diethyl [(5-amino-4-cyano-3-methylsulfanyl-pyrazol-1-yl)–(4-fluorophenyl)methyl] phosphonate (3) was efficiently synthesized via the condensation of 1-hydrazino-1-(4-fluorophenyl)methyl phosphonate (1) with 2-[bis(methylthio)methylene]malononitrile (2).3 reacted with triethyl orthoformate to afford diethyl [(4-cyano-5-ethoxymethyleneamino-3-methylsulfanyl-pyrazol-1-yl)-(4-fluorophenyl)methyl] phosphonate (4), which reacted with various acyl hydrazines in refluxing 2-methoxyethanol to provide the target compounds (5) in good yields directly. The results of preliminary bioassay indicated that compounds 5 possess potent herbicidal activity against the roots of monocotyledonous (barnyard grass) and dicotyledonous (oil rape) plants, and could be further developed as potential herbicides.
The project was sponsored by the Natural Science Foundation of china (No. 20302002) and the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education Ministry (No. [2007] 1108).