1,4-Dimethoxy-2,3-dinitrobenzene (1) reduction using sodium hydrosulfite resulted in 3,6-dimethoxybenzene-1,2-diamine (2) and 3,6-dimethoxy-2-nitroaniline (3) in 24% and 59% yields, respectively. Nitroaniline 3 was acetylated with acetyl chloride to give N-(3,6-dimethoxy-2-nitrophenyl)acetamide (4) in a 65% yield and with acetic anhydride to give N-acetyl-N-(3,6-dimethoxy-2-nitrophenyl)acetamide (5) in 78% yield. Novel compounds 4 and 5 were characterized by FT-IR, 1H and 13C-NMR, and HRMS. The X-ray crystal structure of acetamide 4 is also presented.
Al-Dulaimi et al. (Tue,) studied this question.