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.