A facile access to natural and unnatural dialkylsubstituted maleic anhydrides

A facile new route to naturally occurring 2-carboxyethyl-3-octylmaleic anhydride (1a) and unnatural dioctylmaleic anhydride (11) has been demonstrated via a chemoselective SN2′ Grignard coupling reaction with dimethyl bromomethylfumarate (3) followed by a chemoselective diethyl malonate/Grignard coupling reaction pathway.