Microwave-Assisted Organic Synthesis: A Green Chemical Approach

The large-scale production of chemicals to meet various societal needs has created environmental pollution, including pollution from byproducts and improper disposal of waste. With the world facing adverse consequences due to this pollution, green chemistry is increasingly being viewed as a means to address this concern. Since most organic syntheses require toxic solvents, more reaction time, and drastic conditions of temperature, conventional methods of organic synthesis are less preferred. Microwave-assisted organic synthesis is considered to be a promising green chemical approach because it reduces reaction time from days or hours to minutes or even seconds, and has many other advantages. It helps reduce side reactions and increase yields, uses fewer solvents or is almost solvent-free, has solid supported reactions, and improves purity. This book’s main focus is microwave-assisted organic synthesis processes, particularly various reactions such as cycloaddition, rearrangement, elimination, substitution, oxidation, reduction, condensation, coupling, polymerization, nanomaterials, synthesis of heterocycles, and industrial applications under microwave irradiation. The time is not far off when this methodology will virtually replace existing and cumbersome methods of organic synthesis.