A derivative of tetramic acid was synthesised from N-Boc-glycylglycine. Afterwards, trans-β-nitrostyrene, as the Michael acceptor, was added to the tetramic acid in the presence of an organocatalyst. In the first experiment, I used chiral organocatalyst as opposed to achiral organocatalyst, that was used in the second experiment. Synthesised product was tetramic acid, where nitrostyrene has added to the nucleophilic carbon positioned between the two carbonyl groups of the tetramic acid. After that, I performed alkylation reaction of the two previously obtained products with benzyl bromide as the alkylating reagent. HPLC analysis was used to confirm the racemic mixture in one of the products and to help determine the enantiomeric excess of the product where chiral catalyst was used. The structures of tetramic acid and the two alkylated products were confirmed by NMR, IR, and MS analyses.
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