1, 3-Dialkylimidazolium halides, microwave

Ionic liquids, being polar and ionic in character, couple to the MW irradiation very efficiently and therefore are ideal microwave absorbing candidates for expediting chemical reactions. An efficient preparation of the 1,3-dialkylimidazolium halides via microwave heating has been described by Varma et al. that reduces the reaction time from several hours to minutes and avoids the use of a large excess of alkyl ha-lides/organic solvents as the reaction medium (Scheme 6.56) [26-28]. 

The preparation of 1,3-dialkylimidazolium halides by conventional heating in solvent under reflux requires several hours to afford reasonable yields and also uses a large excess of alkyl halides and/or organic solvents as the reaction medium. To circumvent these problems Varma and coworkers [106] investigated the preparation of a series of ionic liquids 72 (Scheme 8.74), using microwave irradiation as the energy source, by simple exposure of neat reactants, in open containers, to microwaves by use of an unmodified household MW oven (240 W). 

Nitriles are versatile and important components of a range of dyes, natural products, and pharmaceuticals. Aryl nitriles can be synthesized from aryl halides by direct reaction between aryl halides and copper cyanide, known as the Rosemund von Braun reaction [36]. These cyanation reactions can have several disadvantages, in particular the long reaction times required. Ren and coworkers showed that 1,3-dialkylimidazolium halide-based ionic liquids can be used as solvents in the Rosemund von Braun reaction [37]. Complete conversion, based on GC-MS analysis, was achieved after 24 h at 90 °C. When using microwave irradiation and ionic liquid as a solvent, Leadbeater and coworkers showed the reaction times could be reduced to between 3 and 10 min [38]. Under the optimized reaction conditions, 2 equiv. CuCN and 1 equiv. aryl halide were rapidly heated to 200 °C in [i-PrMIM]Br as solvent. Representative results are collected in Table 7.3. The microwave method works as well as the conventional method for a range of aryl iodide and aryl bro-... 

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