Abstract

In this study, ten different asymmetric olefins, with very good yield 77-92% were afforded using Knoevenagel condensation reaction between different aldehydes such as benzaldehyde, p-methoxybenzaldehyde, p-chlorobenzaldehyde, p-nitrobenzaldehyde and cinnamaldehyde and substrates containing active methylene groups such as 2-(4-bromophenyl) acetonitrile and 2-(naphthalen-2-yl) acetonitrile in ethanol at room temperature, in the presence of potassium hydroxide as a catalyst. All the synthesized compounds were identified on the basis of melting point, TLC and NMR spectra. In addition, these compounds were tested against microorganisms such as gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative bacteria in comparison with different antibiotics and the results were shown activity against gram-positive bacteria and gram-negative bacteria where compounds (V) and (X) exhibited higher activity than others against all selected microorganisms.

Keywords:

Aryl acetonitriles, asymmetric olefin, benzaldehyde, cinnamaldehyde, knoevenagel condensation,

References

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

Open Access Policy

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Copyright

The authors have no competing interests.