An efficient protocol for the synthesis of novel hetero-aryl chalcone: A versatile synthon for several heterocyclic scaffolds and sensors

Chalcone is a resourceful scaffold of various biologically active heteroaryl derivatives. Several protocols, name reactions, and natural processes are known for synthesizing multiple chalcone derivatives. Herein we report a comparative study to synthesize novel heteroaryl chalcone derivatives. The designed chalcone scaffolds are synthesized by a reaction of substituted aromatic ketones and benzo[b]thiophene carbaldehyde in the presence of the catalytic amount of KOH or cost-effective pyrrolidine catalyst under room temperature. The pyrrolidine catalysed process gave better synthetic yields but slower than the KOH catalysed process. All the newly synthesized molecular structures are confirmed using IR, NMR, and HRMS. The stereochemistry of the synthesized compounds is established using single-crystal XRD structures. The synthesized chalcone was also used for the sensing of hydrazine.