“One-Pot” In Situ Tandem Reaction─Dy(III) Coordination-Catalyzed Multicomponent Condensation of Salicylaldehyde Derivatives to Obtain Ketals

It is difficult to subject simple reaction starting materials to a “one-pot” in situ tandem reaction without post-treatment under mild reaction conditions to obtain multimers with complex structural linkages. In organic synthesis, acetal reactions are often used to protect derivatives containing carbonyl functional groups. Therefore, acetal products tend to have very low stability, and performing multi-step condensation to obtain complex multimeric products is difficult. Herein, we achieved the first efficient multiple condensation of o-vanillin derivatives using Dy(OAc)3·6H2O undergoing a “one-pot” in situ tandem reaction under mild solvothermal conditions to obtain a series of dimers (I and II, clusters 1and 2) and trimers (I and II, clusters 3and 4). When methanol or ethanol is used as the solvent, the alcoholic solvent participates in acetal and dehydration reactions to obtain dimers (I and II). Surprisingly, when using acetonitrile as the reaction solvent, the o-vanillin derivatives undergo acetal and dehydration reactions to obtain trimers (I and II). In addition, clusters 1–4all showed distinct single-molecule magnetic behaviors under zero-field conditions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that multiple acetal reactions catalyzed by coordination-directed catalysis under “one-pot” conditions have been realized, opening a new horizon for the development of fast, facile, green, and efficient synthetic methods for complex compounds.