Acylals or 1,1-diacetates are a range of protection groups for aldehyde due to
their remarkable stability to neutral and basic conditions. They can be converted into
other useful functional groups by suitable nucleophiles. These compounds have been used
as carbonyl surrogates for asymmetric synthesis. An efficient, green and convenient
procedure of the synthesis of 1,1-diacetates from aromatic aldehydes and acetic
anhydride under mild and solvent-free conditions at room temperature, in the presence of
Dendrimer-PWAn is reported. Moreover, this catalyst could be recovered easily and
reused several times without significant loss in activity.
