Wen-Bin Yi

In this brief the authors introduce a series of recently developed bio-based solvents including cyclopentyl methyl ether (CPME), ?-valerolactone (GVL), 2-methyl tetrahydrofuran (2-MeTHF), propylene carbonate (PC), and cyrene. Traditional organic solvents used for organic synthesis (such as benzene, ether, chloroform) have a series drawbacks on toxicity, environmental impact, and safely related issues. In addition, the fossil fuel-derived organic solvents are not sustainable. Therefore the development of biorenewable solvents is a topic of current interest. For each of the solvents, their production, toxicity profile, renewable pathway, and their utility in organic synthesis, biosynthesis, and separation processes is discussed. The target audiences of this book are organic and medicinal chemists with interests in using green solvents. It can also be used as a reference for undergraduate and graduate courses related to organic and green chemistry.

This book emphasizes the atom economy aspect of multicomponent reactions. It describes how this methodology has been applied to several named reactions. Among the “twelve principles of green chemistry”, atom economy addresses ‘synthetic efficiency’. A multicomponent reaction can be defined as an energy, cost, and time efficient method for organic synthesis. Instead of making one or two bonds in a chemical transformation, multicomponent reactions generate several chemical bonds in a single operation. This book presents a series of detailed reaction mechanisms that beautifully illustrate this principle. Multicomponent reactions are widely applied to the preparation of complex and diverse molecular structures in academic and industrial research laboratories. As such, this book is targeted at researchers involved in green organic chemistry.