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

• are one of the major driving forces in green synthesis [1][2]. High hydrostatic pressure (HHP) activation, one of such methods, is based on mechanical compression force. The typical pressure range is 2–20 kbar that is orders of magnitude greater than the conditions traditionally employed in chemistry

• reactions; although pressurizing the system requires energy, once the system is pressurized it does not need energy to maintain it. This can result in remarkable energy saving especially in long reactions. In order to aid the understanding of this technique a schematic design of a high hydrostatic pressure