Question

Acetylenic compounds may be used as dienophiles in the Diels-Alder reaction. Write the structure for an adduct that you expect from the reaction of 1,3-butadiene with hexafluoro-2-butyne:

Answer 1

Answer:

Explanation:

An electron-donating heteroatom substituent at position-2 of a furan promotes regiospecific opening of the 7-oxa bridge of the Diels-Alder cycloadduct with hexafluoro-2-butyne, producing a 4-heterosubstituted 2,3-di(trifluoromethyl)phenol building block in a single step. The phenol and heteroatom substituent are easily transformed to the corresponding iodide or triflate that readily undergoes Heck, Suzuki, and Stille reactions to install a variety of substituents in high yields. This methodology provides a facile and general synthesis of 1,4-disubsituted 2, 3-di(trifluoromethyl)benzenes.