Abstract: The present study was undertaken to study the effect of different secondary amines which are used as the dehydrating catalyst in the Knoevenagel synthetic mechanism for the synthesis of 3-substituted phenyl-1-(3-coumarinyl) propan-1-ones. Various studies have been done using piperidine as catalyst in the various condensation reactions. Here in this study differently arranged secondary amine compounds were used namely: piperidine, diethylamine and N-isopropylamine, to know their effects on the reaction pathway especially in the case of reaction time and the percentage yield of the final products. In the results it was evaluated that diethylamine has proven to be yielding larger amounts of final products while the reaction time of piperidine catalysed reaction was least. N-isopropylamine has proven to be least effective among two. These observations could further stimulate the research on the use of other amines apart from secondary amines as catalyst in condensation recations like Knoevenagels.

 

Keywords: Knoevenagel reaction, piperidine, diethylamine, N-isopropylamine, coumarin.