In the seveuth paper3 of this series it was shown that the methylene carbon of ketene diethylacetal (I) could be directly alkylated by heating the acetal with such halides as n-butyl bromide, allyl bromide and benzyl bromide. As would be expected, n-butyl bromide was the least reactive of these halides, and the conditions (seventy-two hours at 250') necessary to cause it to react were so drastic that only 13% of the alkylated product, ethyl caproate, was ...
