Rapid and Efficient Uncatalyzed Knoevenagel Condensations from Binary Mixture of Ethanol and Water

This paper presents a new green protocol for Knoevenagel condensations of aldehydes and compounds with an active methylene group in a binary mixture of ethanol/water (3:7, v/v). This medium favored the uncatalyzed Knoevenagel reactions and easy workup products can be obtained by precipitation in this medium and showed good isolated yields (55-100%) in short reaction times (1-60 min).