First, we used identical conditions as reported by Koelsch et al. with crotonic acid and benzene as starting materials. 12 However, we failed to achieve the literature's yield (81.5%; a very low yield was obtained) in repeating the reaction several times. Instead, crotonic acid was recovered in all cases. To improve reactivity, we used more active crotonoyl chloride instead of crotonic acid and obtained a mixture of 3-methyl-1- indanone, 1-phenyl-but-2-en-1-one, and 1,3- ...
