A tandem Aldol condensation/dehydration co-catalyzed by acylase and N-heterocyclic compounds in organic media

▶ A facile method to perform tandem Aldol condensation/dehydration between aldehydes and ketones has been developed by d-aminoacylase and N-heterocyclic compounds as co-catalyst in octane. The relationship of d-aminoacylase and imidazole was demonstrated by the combination of different control experiments. To make summarize, the quality ratio of d-aminoacylase and imidazole should be 2/1 and the tandem reaction between aldehydes and ketones was carried out in octane at 50 °C. After the optimization of the stepwise process, series of α, β-unsaturated ketones were prepared efficiently using d-aminoacylase and imidazole via tandem condensation/dehydration reaction.