Base-catalyzed Michael addition of nitroalkane to conjugated nitroalkene suffers serious practical difficulties due to the formation of oligomeric byproduct. Given its importance for synthesis of pharmacologically relevant organic compounds, a scalable synthesis of 1,3-dinitroalkane is developed by addition of nitroalkane to nitroalkene in aqueous phosphate buffer at pH 7.0 with no added traditional base catalyst.
The reaction of aromatic aldehydes with nitromethane afforded a one-pot preparation of 1,3-dinitroalkanes in the presence of a nickel catalytic system. This efficient and simple method proceeded with moderate to high yields (56–99%) under mild conditions.