[pcdsyp]

Recently I read a paper about Baylis-Hillman reaction "J. Org. Chem. 2001, 66, 5413-5418". The paper showed that the reaction between formaldehyde and methyl acrylate can reach 90% conversion in 9 hours if they used a water/dioxane(v/v=1/1) medium. I followed the procedure in this paper and used the same amount of starting material, however, I still can not get a high conversion.
I wonder if somebody know this type of reaction and can help me?
Thank you guys!