Acetic anhydride-promoted one-pot condensation of 2,4-thiazolidinedione with bisulfite adducts of aldehydes

We describe a simple and efficient one-pot method for condensing bisulfite adducts of aromatic aldehydes directly with 2,4-thiazolidinedione catalyzed by acetic anhydride. The two main highlights of this study are the one-pot condensation of bisulfite adducts with 2,4-thiazolidinedione in non-aqueous media and the use of Design of Experiment to understand and optimize the reaction conditions. This methodology was then generalized using other active methylene compounds, such as malononitrile. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.