One‐Pot Diastereoselective Synthesis of Densely Functionalized 2H‐Indeno[2,1‐b]furans. Single‐Crystal X‐Ray Structure of Dimethyl 8,8a‐Dihydro‐8‐oxo‐8a‐(2,2,2‐trichloroethoxy)‐2H‐indeno[2,1‐b]furan‐2,3‐dicarboxylate

Highly reactive 1 : 1 intermediates were produced in the reaction of Ph3P and dialkyl acetylenedicarboxylates (=dialkyl but‐2‐ynedioates). Protonation of these intermediates by alcohols (2,2,2‐trichloroethanol, propargyl alcohol (=prop‐2‐yn‐1‐ol), MeOH, benzyl alcohol, and allyl alcohol (=prop‐2‐en‐1‐ol) led to vinyltriphenylphosphonium salts 4, which underwent a Michael addition reaction with the conjugate base to produce the corresponding stabilized phosphonium ylides 5 (Scheme). Wittig reaction of the stabilized phosphonium ylides with ninhydrin (6) led to the corresponding densely functionalized 2H‐indeno[2,1‐b]furans 10 in fairly good yields (Table 1). The structures of the final products were confirmed by IR, 1H‐ and 13C‐NMR spectroscopy, and mass spectrometry. The configuration of dimethyl 8,8a‐dihydro‐8‐oxo‐8a‐(2,2,2‐trichloroethoxy)‐2H‐indeno[2,1‐b]furan‐2,3‐dicarboxylate (10a) was established by a single‐crystal X‐ray structure determination, establishing that the one‐pot multicomponent condensation reaction was completely diastereoselective.