Active Methylene-based Multicomponent Reactions under Microwave Heating

Abstract

The use of emerging multicomponent reactions (MCRs) in conjunction with microwave (MW)-assisted chemistry techniques is dramatically reducing chemical waste and reaction times in several organic syntheses and chemical transformations. MW-assisted active methylene-based multicomponent reactions serve as a rapid and efficient tool for the synthesis of versatile heterocycles, particularly those containing structural diversity and complexity via a one-pot operation. This minireview covers our recent advances on multicomponent reactions involving active methylene compounds for the construction of bioactive molecule skeletons. In many cases, MW-assisted MCRs offer considerable improvements in selectivity, chemical yield and purity and constitutes a very simple and extremely rapid method to access a diverse range of heterocyclic motifs.

Groebke–Blackburn–Bienaymé multicomponent reaction: emerging chemistry for drug discovery

“…Many examples were presented whereby microwave irradiation was used as an energy-efficient heat source that directly transferred to the molecules of the reaction mixture via dielectric heating. Furthermore, this direct heat transfer allows reactions to proceed much faster, in higher yields, with improved selectivities than classical heating methods [74][75][76].…”