Influence of catalytic system composition on formation of adamantane containing ketones

The preparation of non-symmetrical ketones by the reaction of acyl chlorides and the corresponding Grignard reagents in the presence of catalytic amounts of metal halides is described. The composition of catalyst has a great influence on the yield of the required ketone as well as on side product formation. For each catalytic system, the yield of ketone and the number of side products changes with the time of addition of the Grignard reagent. We examined the influence of both factors in our model reaction of adamantane-1-carbonyl chloride with ethylmagnesium bromide and discussed the possible mechanisms from this point of view. We have found ZnCl2, MnCl2, AlCl3 and CuCl to be active catalytic components and developed very efficient, cheap and fast methods for the preparation of alkyl adamantyl ketones. The procedure was also tested for the synthesis of other alkyl aryl ketones.