One-pot palladium-catalyzed highly chemo-, regio-, and stereoselective synthesis of trans-stilbene derivatives. A concise and convenient synthesis of resveratrol

A convenient, efficient and highly chemo-, regio-, and stereoselective one-flask synthetic method is reported for the construction of unsymmetrical (or symmetrical) trans-stilbene derivatives based on two sequential Heck-type reactions using tetraalkylammonium salt-based catalyst systems and vinyltrimethylsilane as double bond equivalents. Resveratrol has thus been concisely synthesized.