Step 1 – Acid catalysed enolization
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The first stage of this reaction is the acid-catalysed enolization step. Once the oxygen atom has been protonated, a hydrogen atom is lost from the ring structure to form the enol.
On to step 2 of aldol reaction.
Back to cyclopentanone aldol summary
D. S. Noyce and W. A. Pryor, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 1955, 77, 1397–1401.
C. L. Perrin and K.-L. Chang, J. Org. Chem., 2016, 81, 5631–5635.