mediate. Moreover, formation of an enediol could also have led to elimination of halide to ultimately yield methylglyoxal. Fluorohydroxyacetone (4a) was also stable in solution to pH 12, and the relative amounts of hydrate and free ketone appeared to be unaffected from pH 1 to 12. The chloro (4b) and bromo (4c) analogues were considerably labile under alkaline conditions presumably via nucleophilic substitution of the activated a-halo ketone by ...
