278 Current Green Chemistry, 2016, Vol. 3, No. 4
Editorial
Editorial Current Trends in Organic Syntheses: Advances in Green Chemistry Research – Part-II As underlined in the editorial of the preceding thematic issue (Current Green Chemistry, 2016, Vol. 3, No. 3) on the importance and scope of practicing green chemistry in current organic syntheses, the present thematic issue has been designed as a continuation to this significant domain. The present-day chemical world has really been motivated to assimilate the knowledge on the understanding and advancement in the field of clean technologies so as to meet the goals of sustainability and sustainable development in our process systems. The domain of green chemistry research is flourishing rapidly. Accordingly, this thematic special issue ‘Current Trends in Organic Syntheses: Advances in Green Chemistry Research – Part-II’ is a continuing endeavor to record how green chemistry research continues to make significant contributions in such a remarkable field of interest; the present issue brings together a total of seven articles (both review and original research) contributed by the leading scientists working in this field. The first three articles are extensive reviews on three different contemporary topics of emerging interests in the relevant field. The beginning article by Ranu and his group offers a comprehensive account on the visible-light photocatalyzed carbonheteroatom bond forming reactions leading to the synthesis of a wide array of useful compounds including related heterocycles. In recent times, visible-light mediated reactions have gained considerable interest in organic synthesis because of their specific advantages over conventional methods. In their article, the authors successfully outlined the recent advancement in this significant area highlighting the importance and utility of visible-light photocatalysis for a handful of organic transformations that include carbon-nitrogen, carbon-oxygen, carbon-phosphorous and carbon-X (X = S/Se/Te) bond forming reactions. The second article by Singh and co-authors deals with recent progress in asymmetric aldol reactions under solvent-free conditions or in water as a green solvent. Enantioselective aldol condensation is an important reaction for forming carbon-carbon bond, and asymmetric catalysis is undoubtedly the most popular technique for realizing such enantioselective synthesis of different target molecules. The present review summarizes such developments during the recent past focusing on the successful applications of various asymmetric catalysts, particularly prolines and Cinchona alkaloids, under eco-friendly conditions. The third contribution in this series by Khurana and his group delineates the recent advances on the application of Meldrum’s acid, a widely used building block, in generating a huge array of heterocycles of pharmacological promise via multicomponent reactions. Multicomponent reaction, now-a-days, is well-regarded as a powerful synthetic technique for the rapid generation of structurally diverse combinatorial libraries for lead molecules. The remaining four contributions are original research in the field of green chemistry. Boddula and Srinivasan demonstrated the synthesis, characterization and application of a simple and reusable polyaniline catalyst (PANI-H2SO4) for the ring-opening polymerization of tetrahydrofuran in the fourth contribution. In the fifth contribution, Sarkar and Mukhopadhyay reported an ultrasound-promoted catalyst-free procedure for the one-pot synthesis of 1,4-dihydropyridines and bi-phenyl derivatives in aqueous medium under ambient conditions. An alternative and convenient methodology for the one-pot aqueous phase synthesis of a series of biologically and materially important naphtho[e]bis[1,3]oxazines in good yields is disclosed by Nath and coworkers in the next article. Based on differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) analysis, the investigators claimed that some of the synthesized compounds could be better candidates for making polynaphthoxazines with enhanced material properties. In the final contribution of this present thematic issue, Parmar and his group explored the triphenyl phosphite-mediated green synthesis of a novel series of carboxycoumarin amides with promising anti-inflammatory activity. A considerable growth in the field of green chemistry practice has been achieved so far and the subject has already appeared as a distinct discipline; still it would have to traverse a long way so that molecular science can meet the challenges of sustainability. I am most grateful to all the authors for their valuable contributions in response to my personal invitation, and I am now pleased to present this special thematic issue for Current Green Chemistry (CGC). I do wish all the best for the journal and I am sure it would continue its scientific performance in a more expanding manner in the future to the cause of green chemistry practice. Goutam Brahmachari Guest Editor Laboratory of Natural Products & Organic Synthesis Department of Chemistry, Visva-Bharati (a central University) Santiniketan-731235, West Bengal India E-mail:
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