This paper is dedicated with best wishes to Professor Goverdhan Mehta on the occasion
of his 70th birthday.
Reaction of bis-diazocarbonyl compounds and dicarbaldehyde/divinyl derivatives in
the presence of rhodium(II) acetate dimer as the catalyst led to the facile synthesis
of conformationally restricted symmetric macrodiolides incorporating oxa/dioxa-bridged
bicyclic systems. The structure and configuration of a representative macrodiolide
were unequivocally confirmed using single-crystal X-ray analysis.
Key words
cycloaddition - diazo compounds - macrocycles - rhodium - ylides