Organocatalyzed Transesterification of Acrylates: Mechanistic Investigation to its Limitations

Motivated by in-situ transesterification by the 1,2-diols (glycol, 1,2-propanediol and glycerol) used as H-bond donors in our previous work, we intended to study the process.Literature search revealed the lack of report of such amine catalyzed transesterification protocols.Additionally, ester motifs have been known for their synthetic application in the polymer industry.By tuning these motifs, we might be able to achieve an array of such prototypes for industrial application.Herein, we attempted to design an array of acrylate derivatives using transesterification of methyl acrylate with various alcohols catalysed by amine organocatalyst.This work focuses on the transesterification of acrylate, with both monools and diols as nucleophiles.