A ketone enolate is an

enolate In organic chemistry, enolates are organic anions derived from the deprotonation of carbonyl () compounds. Rarely isolated, they are widely used as reagents in the synthesis of organic compounds. Bonding and structure Enolate anions are electr ...

formed from a

ketone In organic chemistry, a ketone is a functional group with the structure R–C(=O)–R', where R and R' can be a variety of carbon-containing substituents. Ketones contain a carbonyl group –C(=O)– (which contains a carbon-oxygen double bon ...

by reaction with a

strong base In chemistry, there are three definitions in common use of the word base, known as Arrhenius bases, Brønsted bases, and Lewis bases. All definitions agree that bases are substances that react with acids, as originally proposed by G.-F. ...

, such as

lithium diisopropylamide Lithium diisopropylamide (commonly abbreviated LDA) is a chemical compound with the molecular formula . It is used as a strong base and has been widely utilized due to its good solubility in non-polar organic solvents and non-nucleophilic nature ...

, or with a

Lewis acid A Lewis acid (named for the American physical chemist Gilbert N. Lewis) is a chemical species that contains an empty orbital which is capable of accepting an electron pair from a Lewis base to form a Lewis adduct. A Lewis base, then, is any sp ...

such as

dibutylboron trifluoromethanesulfonate Dibutylboron trifluoromethanesulfonate (also called dibutylboron triflate or DBBT) is a reagent in organic chemistry. Its chemical formula is C9H18BF3O3S. It is used in asymmetric synthesis for example in the formation of boron enolates in the al ...

and a weak base such as ''N'',''N''-diisopropylethylamine. In the latter case, the base takes the hydrogen ion from the

alpha carbon In the nomenclature of organic chemistry, a locant is a term to indicate the position of a functional group or substituent within a molecule. Numeric locants The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) recommends the use ...

of the ketone and the electron acceptor atom of the Lewis acid becomes attached to the oxygen of the ketone.

References

Enols Ketones Anions {{organic-chemistry-stub