The dehydration and subsequent cyclization reactions of 1-styrylpropargyl alcohols was examined. In the course of these studies, numerous scaffolds were synthesized, including a furan, a cyclopentenone, an acyclic enone and even a naphthalenone. The diversity of these structural motifs lies in novel cascades of reactions originating from a common carbocationic manifold.
Keywords: carbocationic rearrangement; cyclopentenones; furans; propargyl alcohols.