Sustainable routes for quantitative green selenocyanation of activated alkynes

摘要

Most organic reactions require the usage of volatile organic compounds in the synthesis, work-up and purification processes, thus resulting in major environmental pollution and high manufacturing cost. By using cheap biomass lactic acid as the reaction media and catalyst, a sustainable protocol for the synthesis of Z-3-selenocyanatoacrylates and analogues through green selenocyanation of activated alkynes has been achieved. A principal advantage of this protocol is that the usage of organic volatile compounds can be avoided entirely, as the conversion of substrate is almost quantitative or quantitative with a minimal amount of lactic acid employed as reaction media, and the pure products can be conveniently collected through water precipitation.