Facile synthesis of hydantoins and thiohydantoins in aqueous solution

✍ Scribed by Graziano Baccolini; Carla Boga; Camilla Delpivo; Gabriele Micheletti

• Book ID: 104098925
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2011
• Tongue: French
• Weight: 562 KB
• Volume: 52
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0040-4039
• DOI: 10.1016/j.tetlet.2011.02.002

✦ Synopsis

A series of hydantoins and thiohydantoins have been synthesized in water at room temperature from urea (or N-methylurea, or thiourea) and simple aldehydes (as glyoxal, and its simple derivatives) in the presence of phosphoric anhydride. The reaction time is 10 min using an equimolar amount of P 4 O 10 with respect to the other reagents, but the reaction occurs also, even if with longer reaction times, with very small amounts of P 4 O 10 .

In addition, this method provides a clean and 'green' approach to hydantoins, compounds of great interest in biological and pharmacological fields.