The reported structures of reaction products of enaminones with malononitrile in ethanolic piperidine are revised. A novel route to 2,3-dihydropyridazine-4-carboxylic acids 4a-c via reactions of 2-cyano-5-(dimethylamino)-5-arylpenta-2,4-dienamides 8a-c with nitrous acid or with benzenediazonium chloride is reported. Compounds 8a-c are converted to 1,2-dihydropyridine-3-carboxylic acid and 1,2-dihydropyridine-3-carbonitrile derivatives upon reflux in EtOH/ HCl and in AcOH.

A simple route to 3-oxoalkanonitrile 5, aprecursor of the title compounds is described. Reaction of enaminones 2 with hydroxylamine hydrochloride in ethanol yielded aldoximes 3 that were converted readily into 5 in basic medium. This method has been successfully applied with a number of substrates and resulted in excellent yields of the products. Reacting 5 with trichloroacetonitrile afforded 3-amino-2-aroyl-4,4,4-trichloro-2-butenenitriles 6 that condensed with hydrazines to yield 3-amino-1H-pyrazole-4-carbonitrilederivatives 8. Substituted pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyridmidines have been prepared with regioselective condensation reactions of 8 with nonsymmetrical dielectrophiles. The structures of compounds obtained were deduced based on ¹H-NMR, ¹H-¹⁵N HMBC- measurements.

While the thienocoumarin 1 reacts with aryl vinyl ketones, ω-nitrostyrene and ethoxymethylene malononitrile to yield only C-1 alkylation products, it reacts with enaminones (3a–c) to yield either N-alkylated derivatives (4a–c) or a mixture of 4a–c and α,β-unsaturated ketones (9a–c), the former rearranged into the latter on prolonged boiling under reflux in 1,4-dioxane solution in the presence of diethylamine.

The three-component reaction of enaminones, benzaldehyde and hydrazine-HCl or four-component reaction of enaminones, benzaldehyde, hydrazine–HCl and ethyl cyanoacetate in water in the presence of catalytic amount of ammonium acetate has been devised as a straightforward , sustainable approach for the synthesis of 1-H-pyrazole, N-aminopyridine and pyrazol[3,4-b]pyridine derivatives . The key benefits of this approach is simple experimental procedure associated with cost effective and environmentally friendly techniques.