Micelle-driven organic synthesis: an update on the synthesis of heterocycles and natural products in aqueous medium over the last decade

Abstract

Organic synthesis guided by micellar nanoreactors constitutes one of the fundamental fields of organic chemistry that is expected to furnish chemical synthesis in a sustainable fashion. Due to its promise, we were also attracted to using the micelles to enhance chemical reactivity and selectivity and to explore their newer applications in natural products and heterocyclic chemistry. As on date, there is no comprehensive review article that highlights the repertoire of chemical reactions developed in micelles furnishing a range heterocycles and natural products/scaffolds, barring the metal-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions. In this review, we document the last decade (2014–2024) progress of organic reactions developed in micelles to yield a range of heterocyclic and natural product-based scaffolds. Notably, we have excluded the content related to metal-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions and some other aspects of micelles due to the number of overlapping reviews written on such topics. In the current article, we briefly introduce micellar catalysis, regions of reaction sites in micelles, and various surfactants utilized in micelle chemistry. Our discussion also captures the importance of micellar catalysis compared to the conventional organic synthesis. More importantly, the focus of our review is largely on the collection of chemical transformations accomplished in the last decade in accessing heterocycles and natural products to showcase the advancement of organic synthesis through sustainable fashion. Wherever required, we have also captured the various interactions of surfactants with the substrates necessary for driving the reactions and discussed the importance of these heterocycles/natural products in intercepting the key biological pathways.