Synthesis of Heteroaromatics Via One-Pot Solvent-Free Cyclization and Aerobic Dehydrogenation

Aerobic oxidation chemistry is an area of great interest for the potential improvement of environmentally hazardous synthetic processes used to make pharmaceutically valuable compounds. We have recently discovered a novel reaction that utilizes inorganic materials, under solvent-free conditions, as catalytic surfaces for efficient aerobic dehydrogenation. This reactivity can be coupled with acid-catalyzed processes that occur under the same reaction conditions. Here we present our preliminary efforts to explore applications of this new dehydrogenation to one-pot cyclization-dehydrogenation aproaches applicable to the synthesis of pharmaceutically relevant heterocycles including carbazoles, B-carbolines, and pyrazoles.