Aldol Addition | |||||||||
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Reaction type | Coupling reaction | ||||||||
Reaction | |||||||||
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Conditions | |||||||||
Temperature | -Δ, ~-70°C[a]
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Catalyst | -OH or H+
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Identifiers | |||||||||
Organic Chemistry Portal | aldol-addition | ||||||||
RSC ontology ID | RXNO:0000016 | ||||||||
The aldol reaction (aldol addition) is a reaction in organic chemistry that combines two carbonyl compounds (e.g. aldehydes or ketones) to form a new β-hydroxy carbonyl compound. Its simplest form might involve the nucleophilic addition of an enolized ketone to another:
These products are known as aldols, from the aldehyde + alcohol, a structural motif seen in many of the products. The use of aldehyde in the name comes from its history: aldehydes are more reactive than ketones, so that the reaction was discovered first with them.[2][3][4]
The aldol reaction is paradigmatic in organic chemistry and perhaps the most common means of forming carbon–carbon bonds in organic chemistry.[5][6][7] It lends its name to the family of aldol reactions and similar techniques analyze a whole family of carbonyl α-substitution reactions, as well as the diketone condensations. When the nucleophile and electrophile are different, the reaction is called a crossed aldol reaction; on the converse, when the nucleophile and electrophile are the same, the reaction is called an aldol dimerization.
Aldol structural units are found in many important molecules, whether naturally occurring or synthetic.[8][9] The reaction is used in several industrial syntheses, notably of pentaerythritol,[10] trimethylolpropane, the plasticizer 2-ethylhexanol, and the drug Lipitor (atorvastatin, calcium salt).[11] For many of the commodity applications, the stereochemistry of the aldol reaction is unimportant, but the topic is of intense interest for the synthesis of many specialty chemicals.
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