Abstract
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•Diastereoselective annulation reaction.•One-pot, solvent-free reaction.•Cascade-[4+2] annulation and aromatization.•Eco-friendly catalyst with a high natural abundance.•Extension to terminal acetylenes as dienophiles.
Diastereoselective, three-component annulation reaction involving glyoxals, anilines and dienophiles is developed under calcium catalysis. When indene is the dienophile, the reaction gave excellent diastereoselectivity to yield tetrahydro-indenoquinolines, these were further aromatized to get indenoquinolines in one-pot. Aryl acetylenes are used as dienophiles to get 2-acyl quinolines in good yields.