material in a non polar solvent such as benzene hexanes or toluene where benzene is preferred and application to a column of alumina followed by elution with chloroform methanol about 10 1 after approximately five minutes provides a compound 1b and a regioisomer from the beckmann rearrangement compounds of formula 1j may also be prepared by the method illustrated in scheme 6 below a key starting material for this synthesis is the double bond containing compound a compound of formula x substituted with the group er 5 and one to three groups selected from r 5 x where er 5 is defined as an electron withdrawing group chosen from c u2550 o r 7 c u2550 o or 7 c u2550 o nr 7 r 8 s u2550 o 2 r 7 s u2550 o 2 nr 7 r 8 s u2550 o 2 or 7 cyano and heteroaryl additionally compounds of formula x may be wherein er is connected to one of the groups r 5 or directly to the carbon carbon double bond to form a ring and thus includes compounds such as 2 cyclopentene 1 one and 2 cyclohexene 1 one alternatively compounds of formula x where l is defined as cl br i oc u2550 o r 7 or os u2550 o 2 r 7 may be used as starting materials examples of such compounds are 3 chloro 1 cyclopentanone 3.