A recent synthetic project required the introduction of a vinyl group at the methine carbon of a substituted malonate ester. A search of the literature revealed that there are many procedures available to achieve this goal but most require expensive or esoteric reagents.'.* One method, apparently not explored, was a sequence involving alkylation with 1, Zdibromoethane followed by dehydrohalogenation. Earlier work by Salmon-Legagneur ...
