A New Route for the Synthesis of Unsaturated β-Lactam Derivatives from β-Hydroxy-α-Methylene Acrylates

2-Azetidinones, commonly known as β-lactams, are well-known heterocyclic compounds among the organic and medicinal chemists [1]. The activity of the famous antibiotics such as penicillins, cephalosporins and carbapenems are attributed to the presence of 2-azetidinone ring in them [2]. Apart from clinical use, β-lactams can also serve as good synthons in the synthesis of many biologically active heterocycles [3]. A number of methods have thus been developed for their synthesis, however, these methods suffer from either limited scope of applicationor harsh experimental conditions. Therefore, the development of simple, economic, efficient and general methods is certainly highly desirable. In continuation of our interest for the Baylis-Hillman adducts (β-hydroxy-α-methyleneacrylate adducts) and transformation of them into a variety of natural and unnatural compounds [4], herein we wish to report our results for the direct transformation of Baylis-Hillman adductsinto the correspondingα-methylene β-lactams and α-arylidene β-lactams using a new protocols (Figure 1).