organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the science, scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic matter, organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain ...

, a benzylidene acetal is the functional group with the structural formula C₆H₅CH(OR)₂ (R = alkyl, aryl). Benzylidene acetals are used as

protecting group A protecting group or protective group is introduced into a molecule by chemical modification of a functional group to obtain chemoselectivity in a subsequent chemical reaction. It plays an important role in multistep organic synthesis. In man ...

s in glycochemistry. These compounds can also be oxidized to carboxylic acids in order to open important biological molecules, such as

glycosaminoglycan Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) or mucopolysaccharides are long, linear polysaccharides consisting of repeating disaccharide units (i.e. two-sugar units). The repeating two-sugar unit consists of a uronic sugar and an amino sugar, except in the case o ...

s, to other routes of synthesis. They arise from the reaction of a 1,2- or 1,3-

diol A diol is a chemical compound containing two hydroxyl groups ( groups). An aliphatic diol may also be called a glycol. This pairing of functional groups is pervasive, and many subcategories have been identified. They are used as protecting gro ...

s with benzaldehyde. Other aromatic aldehydes are also used.{{cite journal, title=Protection Of Diols With 4-(Tert-butyldimethylsilyloxy)benzylidene Acetal And Its Deprotection , author=Hiroyuki Osajima , author2=Hideto Fujiwara , author3=Kentaro Okano , author4=Hidetoshi Tokuyama , author5=Tohru Fukuyama, journal=Org. Synth., date=2009, volume=86, page=130, doi=10.15227/orgsyn.086.0130, doi-access=free

References

Acetals Functional groups Protecting groups