Background:
The agricultural wastes as a source offer an excellent alternative to replace
many toxic and environmentally hazardous catalysts, due to their least toxicity, ease of biodegradability,
and ability to act as a greener catalytic medium. Some of the agro-waste based catalysts reported
are BFE, WERSA, WEB, and WEPBA. 2-Amino-4H-chromene derivatives are promising biologically
potent heterocyclic compounds, due to their medicinal applications such as antimicrobial,
anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antiviral, anticancer, antidiuretic, anticoagulant and antianaphylactic
activities. The present work describes a microwave accelerated, efficient, eco-friendly
and economical approach for the synthesis of 2-amino-4H-chromenes through condensation of substituted
arylaldehyde, malononitrile and resorcinol/naphthol catalyzed water extract of pomegranate
peel ash (WEPPA) under microwave irradiation. The reaction completed within 3-6 min with good to
excellent yield of product isolation. The final product isolated by simple filtration and recrystallization
gave a spectroscopically pure form of product and did not require further purification.
Methods:
The pomegranate peel ash water extract as an agro-waste derived catalyst was employed
under microwave irradiation for the economical synthesis of 2-amino-4H-chromene derivatives.
Results:
The reported agro-waste based catalyst was obtained in the absence of external base, additives
and solvent-free synthesis of 2-amino-4H-chromene using aryl aldehyde, malononitrile and resorcinol/
naphthol under microwave irradiation. WEPPA acts as a solvent media and catalyst, as it
plays a dual role in the synthesis of 2-amino-4H-chromenes.
Conclusion:
We established an efficient, simple, agro-waste based catalytic approach for the synthesis
of 2-amino-4H-chromene derivatives from the condensation of arylaldehyde, malononitrile and
resorcinol/α-naphthol/β-naphthol employing WEPPA as an efficient catalyst under microwave synthesis.
The method has found to be a greener, economic and eco-friendly approach for the synthesis
of chromene scaffolds. The advantages of the present approach are solvent-free, no external metal,
chemical base free, short reaction time and isolated product in good to excellent yields. The catalyst
is agro-waste derived, which has abundant natural sources available, thus making the present approach
a greener one.