The crude earthworm extract catalysed Henry reactions
The Henry or nitroaldol reaction is an important atomeconomical
methodology to furnish a b-nitro alcohol. The crude
earthworm extract could catalyse Henry reactions in water
(Fig. 4). Various aromatic aldehydes participated in the reactions
with nitromethane, nitroethane and nitropropane giving corresponding
products in yields of 41–92% (Table 3, entries 1–6). In
the absence of the crude earthworm extract, only a trace amount
of product was observed (Table 3, entry 7), indicating that the
crude earthworm extract indeed catalysed the Henry reaction.
Unfortunately, there was no obvious enantiomeric excess of the
products observed by the chiral HPLC analysis.