To a round bottom flask were added 5 g 3-hydroxy-2-naphthalic acidand 16 mL ethanol. The reaction mixture was refluxed for 6 h. After thecompletion of the reaction, the reaction mixture was cooled down to room temperature and washed with distilled water. The organic layerwas recovered and washed with saturated sodium bicarbonate followedby drying with anhydrous MgSO4. The MgSO4 was removed by filtrationand the filtrate was dried under reduced pressure. The resulted solid waspurified by silica chromatography with petroleum ether and ethyl acetate(10:1, v/v) as eluent to give the compound ethyl 3-hydroxy-2-naphthoate(4.1229 g, yield 70.60%).
