Facile chemoselective dithioacetalization of carbonyl compounds promoted by Fe3O4@MCM-41-GPTMS-Gu-CuIINPs as an efficient magnetic nanostructured catalyst

Abstract

Dithioacetalization, as a well-known class of organic transformation, was carried out for protection of a wide variety of aromatic (with electron releasing and electron withdrawing substituents), heteroaromatic and aliphatic aldehydes as well as ketones by 1,2-ethanedithiol/or 1,3-propanedithiol in the presence of Fe₃O₄@MCM-41-GPTMS-Gu-Cu^IINPs. The corresponding 1,3-dithiolanes and 1,3-dithianes were obtained chemoselectively in the presence of Fe₃O₄@MCM-41-GPTMS-Gu-Cu^IINPs with hexagonal core-shell structure, superparamagnetic behavior, and average particle size of 8–25 nm under mild reaction conditions. The nanostructured catalyst could be separated easily from the reaction mixture using a magnetic bar and reused in several reaction runs without any remarkable reduction in its catalytic activity. Nearly neutral conditions, good to high yields of the products, operational simplicity, easy work-up procedure, compatibility with various functional groups make the present method valuable in addition to the known methodologies.