Syntheses of 5‐Hexadecanolide, 6‐Acetoxy‐5‐hexadecanolide and Tanikolide

Total syntheses of 5‐hexadecanolide ( 1 ), 6‐acetoxy‐5‐hexadecanolide ( 2 ) and tanikolide ( 3 ) are described. 1‐Bromoundecane ( 4 ) and 5‐benzyl‐1‐pentanal ( 5 ) were chosen as starting materials. Wittig olefination and Grignard addition 4 and 5 afforded the 16‐carbon skeleton, which under went a series of functional group transformations to give δ‐lactonederivatives 1, 2 and 3.