A Short New Synthesis of Ethyl trans-Chrysanthemate

The discovery of synthetic pyrethroids with increased insecticidal activity and low mammalian toxicity led to abundance of new synthetic results in the chemistry of pyrethroids¹ . Many of these methods adopted on an industrial scale make use of sigmatropic rearrangement, radical addition and nucleophilic ring closer with carbanions. Herein we report a simple and stereospecific route for the synthesis of ethyl trans-chrysanthernate (1) by utilizing carbonyl stabilized sulphuranes. Although the use of Sulphurane was demonstrated at a much earlier stage for the synthesis of methyl trans-chrysanthe-mate², the present approach makes use of simple reagents and offers some operational advantages.