sodium hydrogen carbonate has been used to prepare "di-chalcones" from acetone and the particular aldehyde : In a round bottom flask acetone (2.8 mmol), aldehyde (5.6 mmol) and ethanol (7.5 mL) were stirred at 50º C for 1h. At this temperature 2.5 mL of a solution 1% of NaHCO3 (or Na2CO3) were added slowly and the mixture refluxed for 3h. After cooling to room temperature 25 mL of iced water were added. The chalcone was filtered under vacuum, washed with water and dried (Pâmela da Silva Fonseca, master thesis University of Brasilia)

For chalcones see the following work:

Title: Efficient and clean aldol condensation catalyzed by sodium carbonate in water

Author(s): Zhang, Z ; Dong, YW ; Wang, GW

Source: CHEMISTRY LETTERS Volume: 32 Issue: 10 Pages: 966-967 DOI: 10.1246/cl.2003.966 Published: OCT 5 2003ood luck and

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