Ethyl lactate as a renewable carbonyl source for the synthesis of diynones

Ethyl lactate, a sustainable feedstock, serves as a highly attractive building block for the synthesis of value-added chemicals such as skipped diynones and, after gold-catalyzed transposition, conjugated diynones. Green solvents are involved in all steps and high yields are obtained for the final diynones which, in several cases, are isolated in a pure form without any purification.