High-pressure activation for the solvent- and catalyst-free syntheses of heterocycles, pharmaceuticals and esters

• Kelsey Plasse,
• Valerie Wright,
• Guoshu Xie,
• R. Bernadett Vlocskó,
• Alexander Lazarev and
• Béla Török

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2025, 21, 1374–1387, doi:10.3762/bjoc.21.102

• -products. A computational study accompanies the experimental data to interpret the outcome of the reactions. Keywords: acetaminophen; acetylsalicylic acid; benzimidazoles; catalyst-free synthesis; cyclization; esters; high hydrostatic pressure; pyrazoles; Introduction Non-traditional activation methods

• of important heterocycles, the synthesis of well-known APIs, such as acetaminophen and acetylsalicylic acid, a variety of esterification reactions and the successful scale up (up to 100 g scale) of the Paal–Knorr reaction. The use of HHP appears to provide several advantages, for example, resulting

• (Scheme 2). HHP-assisted acylation of NH and OH groups: synthesis of acetaminophen (paracetamol) and acetylsalicylic acid Tylenol® and Aspirin® are two popular drugs used as pain killers as well as antipyretics [45]. Although their industrial production is straightforward, these syntheses include the use