Revolutionizing Green Chemistry: The Eco-friendly Pathway to Nitrogen Heterocycles

Nitrogen-containing heterocycles are fundamental to the chemical reactions that occur in all organisms. They are the building blocks of life as they are constituents of both RNA and DNA. Today, most of the drugs on the market are nitrogen heterocycles. Therefore, researchers have given huge importance to the synthesis of nitrogen heterocycles in the laboratory as well as in the chemical industry. However, the problem arises when tons of chemical waste is released into the atmosphere. Green synthesis is a process that minimizes or eliminates the use or generation of hazardous substances and this plays a crucial role in saving the earth from chemical pollution.

In the last two decades, synthetic organic chemists have reported various techniques for the green synthesis of organic molecules. Few such examples are multi-component reactions, C-H activation, visible-light promoted reactions, use of metal-free catalyzed or catalyst-free reactions, solvent-free or water or ionic liquid as solvent, chromatography-free isolation etc. However, complete green synthesis is very difficult to achieve. The main concern of the organic synthesis is the toxic waste or by-products formed in the reactions, which can be circumvented by using atom economic reaction strategies. Another major concern is the substantial quantities of organic solvents used in the chromatographic isolation process in industrial plant. Therefore, such issues should be considered in a green synthesis. The goal of this Research Topic is to bring together recent advances in the green synthesis of nitrogen heterocycles.

We welcome Original Research, Review, Mini Review and Perspective articles on themes including, but not limited to:
• Domino reactions, multi-component reactions, on-water reactions etc.
• Metal-free, solvent-free (or benign solvent), catalyst- and chromatography-free reactions
• Use of carbon dioxide as starting material
• CH-functionalization and visible-light promoted reactions
• Use of molecular oxygen as oxidant or oxygenating agent
• Atom economic reactions to avoid toxic by products

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Mini Review
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Mini Review
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review

Keywords: Green chemistry, Nitrogen heterocycles, CH-functionalization, Multi-component reactions, Visible-light promoted reactions, Atom economic reactions

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.