Formaldehyde surrogates in multicomponent reactions

• Cecilia I. Attorresi,
• Javier A. Ramírez and
• Bernhard Westermann

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 564–595, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.45

• ]. They argued that organic bases such as DBU are superior than inorganic bases in improving the yields, probably because of the low solubility of the last ones in the reaction system. In the same way, other bases such as DABCO [64], DBU [66], and TMG (1,1,3,3-tetramethylguanidine) [65][67] were shown to

• last step (nucleophilic substitution in intermediate C by the amine compound). Depending on the conditions, the role of the base can be fulfilled by the amine itself [63] or by the addition of another base such as DBU [66], DABCO [64], or TMG [65]. This mechanism is supported by experimental evidence

Molecular diversity of the reactions of MBH carbonates of isatins and various nucleophiles

• Zi-Ying Xiao,
• Jing Sun and
• Chao-Guo Yan

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 286–295, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.21

• such as DABCO, DBU, triethylamine, and K2CO3 also resulted in the significant reduction of the yields. Therefore, the reaction of MBH nitrile of isatins and arylamines can be simply carried out in toluene at room temperature in the presence of a catalytic amount of DMAP. With the optimized reaction

• yields. The single crystal structure of the compound 6e was determined by X-ray diffraction (Figure 3). The similar reaction of more nucleophilic tri(tert-butyl)phosphine and MBH carbonate of isatin resulted in a mixture of products. After carefully screening the reaction conditions, we found that DABCO

• have been obtained by DABCO-catalyzed dimerization of MBH carbonates of isatin in ODCB at high temperature (150 °C), which could be converted to bisspirooxindole derivatives via the isomerization of the double bond and a sequential thermal 6π-electrocyclic ring-closure process [30]. Here, the novel

Cu(OTf)₂-catalyzed multicomponent reactions

• Sara Colombo,
• Camilla Loro,
• Egle M. Beccalli,
• Gianluigi Broggini and
• Marta Papis

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 122–145, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.7

• and sulfur dioxide afforded vinyl sulfones with excellent regio- and stereoselectivity (Scheme 9) [22]. The authors used DABCO(SO2)2 to generate sulfur dioxide, and visible light irradiation and the mandatory presence of a photocatalyst for this transformation suggested a radical mechanism. The

Recent advances in organocatalytic atroposelective reactions

• Henrich Szabados and
• Radovan Šebesta

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 55–121, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.6

Access to optically active tetrafluoroethylenated amines based on [1,3]-proton shift reaction

• Yuta Kabumoto,
• Eiichiro Yoshimoto,
• Bing Xiaohuan,
• Masato Morita,
• Motohiro Yasui,
• Shigeyuki Yamada and
• Tsutomu Konno

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2776–2783, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.233

• entries 9 and 10 of Table 1, the reaction did not proceed at all with triethylamine or DABCO, and (R)-16b was quantitatively recovered. The influence of the amount of DBU upon the reaction was also investigated (Table 1, entries 11–13). The results showed that when 2.4 equiv of DBU were used, the target

Copper-catalyzed yne-allylic substitutions: concept and recent developments

• Shuang Yang and
• Xinqiang Fang

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2739–2775, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.232

• -value oxazolidinones with exceptional yields and enantioselectivities. This not only addresses the challenge of CO2 waste but also opens new avenues for the sustainable synthesis of complex molecules. Comprehensive mechanistic investigations underscored the pivotal role of DABCO in promoting CO2 capture

Transition-metal-free decarbonylation–oxidation of 3-arylbenzofuran-2(3H)-ones: access to 2-hydroxybenzophenones

• Bhaskar B. Dhotare,
• Seema V. Kanojia,
• Chahna K. Sakhiya,
• Amey Wadawale and
• Dibakar Goswami

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2655–2667, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.223

• , entry 10). Other bases like NaOMe, triethylamine, DBU, DMAP, sodium acetate, or DABCO also produced the product in moderate to good yields (42–87%) when used in excess (Table 1, entries 11–16). Interestingly, the reaction did not proceed in the presence of pyridine as a base (Table 1, entry 17). Finally

Base-promoted cascade recyclization of allomaltol derivatives containing an amide fragment into substituted 3-(1-hydroxyethylidene)tetronic acids

• Andrey N. Komogortsev,
• Constantine V. Milyutin and
• Boris V. Lichitsky

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2585–2591, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.217

• bases under conditions described earlier for corresponding hydrazides. So, among the employed basic agents (Et3N, DABCO, DBU, DMAP, K2CO3, AcONa) only in the case of DBU the expected recyclization was observed and the target product 4a was obtained in 15% yield. In order to enhance the yield of compound

Stereoselective mechanochemical synthesis of thiomalonate Michael adducts via iminium catalysis by chiral primary amines

• Michał Błauciak,
• Dominika Andrzejczyk,
• Błażej Dziuk and
• Rafał Kowalczyk

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2313–2322, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.198

• proved ineffective in facilitating the Michael addition of bisthiomalonates to conjugated ketones, whereas DABCO enabled the formation of desired products under mild conditions [30]. However, reports of highly stereoselective protocols utilizing hydrogen bonding catalysis have mainly focused on

Catalysing (organo-)catalysis: Trends in the application of machine learning to enantioselective organocatalysis

• Stefan P. Schmid,
• Leon Schlosser,
• Frank Glorius and
• Kjell Jorner

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 2280–2304, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.196

Primary amine-catalyzed enantioselective 1,4-Michael addition reaction of pyrazolin-5-ones to α,β-unsaturated ketones

• Pooja Goyal,
• Akhil K. Dubey,
• Raghunath Chowdhury and
• Amey Wadawale

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1518–1526, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.136

• primary amine catalysts (see Table S1 in Supporting Information File 1) in toluene at room temperature (30–32 °C). When the test reaction was conducted in the presence of 15 mol % of 9-amino-9-deoxy-epicinchonidine (I) as catalyst [30] for 12 h and treated with Ac2O followed by DABCO, the reaction gave

• acetylation of the ent-3ba' using acetic anhydride and DABCO, furnishes the desired product ent-3ba. Conclusion In summary, we have realized the Michael addition reaction of 4-unsubstituted pyrazolin-5-ones to α,β-unsaturated ketones under organocatalytic conditions. The developed protocol was efficiently

• -one 2 (0.2 mmol, 1.0 equiv) was added to the mixture and stirred for 4–14 h. Once the pyrazolin-5-one 2 was consumed (monitored by TLC), Ac2O (50 µL, ≈0.52 mmol, 2.6 equiv) and DABCO (11 mg, 50 mol %) were sequentially added. The resulting reaction mixture was further stirred for 2 h at room

Rapid construction of tricyclic tetrahydrocyclopenta[4,5]pyrrolo[2,3-b]pyridine via isocyanide-based multicomponent reaction

• Xiu-Yu Chen,
• Ying Han,
• Jing Sun and
• Chao-Guo Yan

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 1436–1443, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.126

• hour. In the presence of DABCO as base catalyst, the yield of 4a decreased to 27% (Table 1, entry 16). Other common bases such as Et3N and DMAP were also employed in the reaction, they did no gave the product 4a in higher yields than that in the absence of any base, which showed that the reaction does

Carbonylative synthesis and functionalization of indoles

• Alex De Salvo,
• Raffaella Mancuso and
• Xiao-Feng Wu

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 973–1000, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.87

• /PPh3 as catalyst system in the presence of a base (Et3N) in toluene at 110 °C for 5 hours under 10 bar of CO [54]. Guo et al. developed the synthesis from substrates of the same chemical nature but using Pd(OAc)2/BuPAd2 as the catalyst system. In their approach, DABCO was also added to the reaction

SOMOphilic alkyne vs radical-polar crossover approaches: The full story of the azido-alkynylation of alkenes

• Julien Borrel and
• Jerome Waser

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 701–713, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.64

• , entry 10). The addition of DABCO [18] or TBAI [50], two additives known to activate azidobenziodoxolone (ABX), afforded complex mixtures with no trace of 4a (Table 1, entry 11). Acids or fluorinated alcohols were tested to activate the different hypervalent iodine reagents. While AcOH, TFA and TFE had

Switchable molecular tweezers: design and applications

• Pablo Msellem,
• Maksym Dekthiarenko,
• Nihal Hadj Seyd and
• Guillaume Vives

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 504–539, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.45

• form is able to bind diamine guests between the two porphyrins in the apical position for each zinc center. However, it has been observed that the closing can also be induced directly by diamine guests such as DABCO. This system exhibits an allosteric response with positive cooperativity as the binding

Synthesis of 2,2-difluoro-1,3-diketone and 2,2-difluoro-1,3-ketoester derivatives using fluorine gas

• Alexander S. Hampton,
• David R. W. Hodgson,
• Graham McDougald,
• Linhua Wang and
• Graham Sandford

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 460–469, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.41

• , electrophilic reagent to be important. Given the structural similarity of 1,4-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane (DABCO) to the Selectfluor system, a 10% v/v mixture of fluorine in nitrogen was passed through a solution of 1a in acetonitrile containing one equivalent of DABCO, using a fluorination apparatus and gas flow

• the crude yields of fluorinated products were estimated by 19F NMR integration (monofluoro product 2a, δF −189.9 ppm; difluoro product 3a, δF −102.7 ppm) (Table 1, entry 3). Using excess fluorine or DABCO (entries 5 and 6 in Table 1) led to the formation of tars, while 0.1 equiv of DABCO (entry 7

Green and sustainable approaches for the Friedel–Crafts reaction between aldehydes and indoles

• Periklis X. Kolagkis,
• Eirini M. Galathri and
• Christoforos G. Kokotos

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 379–426, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.36

Nucleophilic functionalization of thianthrenium salts under basic conditions

• Xinting Fan,
• Duo Zhang,
• Xiangchuan Xiu,
• Bin Xu,
• Yu Yuan,
• Feng Chen and
• Pan Gao

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2024, 20, 257–263, doi:10.3762/bjoc.20.26

• generation of alkyl radicals [39]. After that, a series of methods for the modification of alkylthianthrenium salts have been developed, including the transition-metal-catalyzed cross-coupling with terminal alkynes [40], sulfonylation with DABCO·(SO2)2 [41][42][43], or alkylation of active alkenes [44][45

Construction of diazepine-containing spiroindolines via annulation reaction of α-halogenated N-acylhydrazones and isatin-derived MBH carbonates

• Xing Liu,
• Wenjing Shi,
• Jing Sun and
• Chao-Guo Yan

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 1923–1932, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.143

• )benzenesulfonamides to give chiral azepane spirooxindoles with excellent stereoselectivity (reaction 2 in Scheme 1) [55][56]. Du and co-workers reported a DABCO-mediated [4 + 3] cycloaddition reaction between o-quinone methides and isatin-derived MBH carbonates to give functionalized benzo[b]oxepine derivatives in

• nitrile of isatin 2a as standard reaction. The main experiments are briefly summarized in Table 1. At first, the reaction in DCM in the presence of common organic bases such as DMAP, DABCO, or DBU gave the expected spiro[indoline-3,5'-[1,2]diazepine] 3a in low to moderate yields (Table 1, entries 1–3

• isatins 4 were also employed in the reaction, but it was found that the reaction proceeded sluggishly in the presence of triethylamine (Scheme 3). However, the expected annulation reaction proceeded smoothly in dichloromethane within 24 hours in the presence of DABCO as base, affording the corresponding

Non-noble metal-catalyzed cross-dehydrogenation coupling (CDC) involving ether α-C(sp³)–H to construct C–C bonds

• Hui Yu and
• Feng Xu

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 1259–1288, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.94

• alkylation of S,S-functionalized internal olefins was achieved by a C(sp2)–H/C(sp3)–H cross-coupling reaction using DTBP as oxidant and DABCO·6H2O as an additive in the presence of FeCl3 (Scheme 22) [83]. The reaction provides a convenient route to tetrasubstituted alkenes and proceeds via a typical radical

• heterocyclic aromatics with α-C–H bonds of ethers was achieved under the irradiation of a 34 W blue LED using rose bengal (RB) as the organic photoredox catalyst, TBHP as oxidizing agent, and DABCO as the base (Scheme 43c) [125]. The wide scope of substrates, aerobic conditions, and gram-scale suitability are

Metal catalyst-free N-allylation/alkylation of imidazole and benzimidazole with Morita–Baylis–Hillman (MBH) alcohols and acetates

• Olfa Mhasni,
• Jalloul Bouajila and
• Farhat Rezgui

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 1251–1258, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.93

• performed using DABCO as an additive, leading to the corresponding 1,4-adducts in 70–84% yields. Keywords: allylic substitution; aza-Michael addition; imidazole; Morita–Baylis–Hillman; Introduction Morita–Baylis–Hillman (MBH) adducts are multifunctionalized compounds having both a hydroxy moiety and a

• 2a and 2b as nucleophilic reagents without catalysts or activating agents (Scheme 1, reaction 2), or from acyclic MBH alcohols 1 using DABCO as a powerful nucleophilic additive (Scheme 1, reaction 3). Results and Discussion In our first investigations, we selected the reaction of the primary acetate

• , the use of DABCO, commonly used as a powerful catalyst or a nucleophilic additive in the reaction of acyclic MBH adducts with various nucleophiles [21][34][35][36][37], did not afford the SN2/SN2’ products but provided the 1,4-adduct 8a in 84% yield (Table 2, entry 4). Alternatively, we also

Selective construction of dispiro[indoline-3,2'-quinoline-3',3''-indoline] and dispiro[indoline-3,2'-pyrrole-3',3''-indoline] via three-component reaction

• Ziying Xiao,
• Fengshun Xu,
• Jing Sun and
• Chao-Guo Yan

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 1234–1242, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.91

• % (Table 1, entry 7). When DABCO or DBU was employed as base, the yield of 3a decreased to 36% and 29% yield, respectively (Table 1, entries 8 and 9). When the loading of ammonium acetate was increased to 0.8 mmol and 1.0 mmol, the yield of 3a increased to 85% and 82% (Table 1, entries 10 and 11

Sulfate radical anion-induced benzylic oxidation of N-(arylsulfonyl)benzylamines to N-arylsulfonylimines

• Joydev K. Laha,
• Pankaj Gupta and
• Amitava Hazra

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 771–777, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.57

• , entry 5). Lowering the temperature to 60 °C had a deleterious effect (Table 1, entry 6). Likewise, reducing the stoichiometry of pyridine to 1 equiv proved detrimental (Table 1, entry 7). Replacing pyridine with other organic and inorganic bases such as Et3N, DBU, DABCO or K2CO3 also gave product 2a

Synthesis of medium and large phostams, phostones, and phostines

• Jiaxi Xu

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 687–699, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.50

• refluxing acetonitrile for 6 h. It underwent a radical cyclization in refluxing benzene for 20 h to give rise to a nine-membered phostone thieno[2,3-d]pyrimidine-fused 2-hydroxy-1,2-oxaphosphonane 2-oxide 46 as a potential inhibitor after the deprotection of the benzyl group in the presence of DABCO in

Direct C2–H alkylation of indoles driven by the photochemical activity of halogen-bonded complexes

• Martina Mamone,
• Giuseppe Gentile,
• Jacopo Dosso,
• Maurizio Prato and
• Giacomo Filippini

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2023, 19, 575–581, doi:10.3762/bjoc.19.42

• , the process is driven by the photochemical activity of halogen-bonded complexes formed upon complexation of a sacrificial donor, namely 1,4-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane (DABCO), with α-iodosulfones. The reaction provides a variety of densely functionalized products in good yields (up to 96% yield

• ambient temperature and under visible-light irradiation. Interestingly, this method employs 1,4-diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane (DABCO) as sacrificial donor in the EDA complex formation with 2. To test the feasibility of our design plan, we focused on the reaction between 3-methylindole (1a, 2 equiv) and α

• mechanism (entries 4 and 5, Table 1) [28]. Afterwards, the effect of the chemical nature of the sacrificial donor on the reaction was investigated (entries 6–9, Table 1). In particular, we employed 2,6-lutidine, 1,1,3,3-tetramethylguanidine (TMG), triethylamine (NEt3), and DABCO. Interestingly, the use of