Abstract: Ethyl 2-benzylacetoacetate was synthesized with ethyl acetoacetate,benzyl chloride and potassium hydroxide as starting materials and tetrabutylammonium bromide as phase transfer catalyst.Effects of reaction time,reaction temperature,catalyst dosage and the molar ratio of the reactants were examined.Results showed that under the optimized reaction conditions as:mole ratio,n(ethyl acetoacetate)∶n(benzyl chloride)∶n(KOH)∶n(H₂O)∶n(tetrabutylammonium bromide)=1∶1.15∶1.2∶7.4∶0.012;reaction temperature,100 ℃ for 5 h;yield of the product reaches 90.54%.

Key words: ethyl 2-benzylacetoacetate, ethyl acetoacetate, benzyl chloride, KOH