Utility of iodine catalyzed tandem oxidation, cross-coupling and cyclisation reactions in organic synthesis

Abstract

Molecular iodine is an eco-friendly, powerful catalyst and plays an important role in pharmaceutical, medicinal and organic chemistry. For a long time, molecular iodine has been hugely applied in carbohydrate chemistry. Due to the huge application of molecular iodine in oxidation, cross coupling and cyclisation reactions, it has emerged as an elegant tool in organic synthesis. Earlier I discussed (Biswas, 2021) on iodine mediated cascade oxidative functionalisation, cyclisation and annulation reactions. In this review, I describe the utility of iodine catalysed tandem oxidation, cross coupling, and cyclisation reactions in organic synthesis. Molecular iodine catalysed mild oxidative conditions yielding desired products, and oxidising techniques applied to the efficient synthesis tolerate a wide range of starting materials with aryl or alkyl replacements. These reactions were carried out as a one-pot or multi-step eco-friendly process that could be used for a wide range of drug and pharmaceutical product synthesis.