Ketones with bulky aromatic, heteroaromatic and ferrocene substituents react with acetylene in the presence of a KOH/DMSO super-base suspension (90?°C, 15 min) to give polysubstituted furans in up to 86?% isolated yields in a one-pot fashion. This assembly of the furan scaffold involves a domino sequence in which one molecule of ketone reacts with two molecules of acetylene.
