3.7 Catalytic activity
The new mixed ligand Schiff base Ni-complex on MCM-41 was used as catalyst for the synthesis of 5-substituted-1H-tetrazoles via one pot three component reactions of various aldehydes, hydroxylamine and sodium azide. These reactions were carried out under two different energy supplying methods namely, thermal heating and microwave irradiation. The effectiveness of the two methods are compared in terms of the reaction time, yield, turn over number and turn over frequency.
Initially, the reaction of o-vanillin, hydroxylamine and sodium azide under the conventional method was selected as a model reaction for optimizing the reaction conditions. When the experiment was carried out in the absence of catalyst in DMF at 120 oC for 6 h, the preferred product was attained with only a poor yield of 47% (Table 2, entry 8). Hence, we tested different amounts of Ni-MCM-41 as a reusable catalyst at 20, 30, 40 and 50 mg in the model reaction. It was observed that the best catalyst loading is 40 mg for this reaction (entry 7) as the yield of the product remained constant while increasing the amount of catalyst used from 40 mg to 50 mg (entries 7, 9,10 & 11).
Table 2
Effect of solvents, temperature, catalyst amount and time for the synthesis of tetrazole derivatives reaction
Entry
|
Solvent
|
Temperature
|
Catalyst
(mg)
|
Time
(min / h)
|
Yield
(%)
|
1.
|
Ethanol a
|
Reflux
|
40
|
6 h
|
52
|
2.
|
Acetonitrile a
|
Reflux
|
40
|
6 h
|
64
|
3.
|
DMSO a
|
100 oC
|
40
|
6 h
|
69
|
4.
|
Toluene a
|
110 oC
|
40
|
6 h
|
71
|
5.
|
DMF a
|
80 oC
|
40
|
6 h
|
69
|
6.
|
DMF a
|
100 oC
|
40
|
6 h
|
77
|
7.
|
DMF a
|
120 oC
|
40
|
6 h
|
90
|
8.
|
DMF b
|
120 oC
|
-
|
6 h
|
47
|
9.
|
DMF a
|
120 oC
|
20
|
6 h
|
65
|
10.
|
DMF a
|
120 oC
|
30
|
6 h
|
74
|
11.
|
DMF a
|
120 oC
|
50
|
6 h
|
90
|
12.
|
DMF c
|
120 oC
|
40
|
5 min
|
54
|
13.
|
DMF c
|
120 oC
|
40
|
10 min
|
73
|
14.
|
DMF c
|
120 oC
|
40
|
20 min
|
80
|
15.
|
DMF c
|
120 oC
|
40
|
30 min
|
94
|
16.
|
DMF c
|
120 oC
|
40
|
40 min
|
94
|
Reaction conditions: (1 mmol) NH2OH.HCl, (1 mmol) NaN3, (1 mmol) o-vanillin, Ni-MCM-41 as catalyst (40 mg, 0.586 mol %) in DMF (5 ml) at 120 oC for conventional method- 6 h a/ microwave method − 30 min c
Reaction carried out under neat condition (without catalyst) b
In general, solvent plays a key role in chemical transformations in terms of reaction time and yield of the product. By considering the use of green solvent, we have also tried a reaction in polar protic solvent, ethanol, resulted in only poor yield (entry 1, 52%). Polar aprotic solvents such as acetonitrile and DMSO also gave only moderate yields (entries 2 & 3) while excellent yield was obtained in DMF (entry 7). The non-polar solvent, toluene, has also given only moderate yield (entry 4). Based on the above studies, DMF was found to be the better solvent over other solvents, similar to most of the reports on tetrazole synthesis. Among the different temperatures tested, it was found that the maximum yield was obtained at 120 oC.
Further, the effect of reaction time in the presence of the catalyst was also investigated. Upon tuning the reaction time, microwave irradiation method shows much superiority over conventional heating in terms of yield and time, 94% in 30 min instead of 90% in 6 h (entries 15 & 7).
Under optimized conditions, the reactions of aldehydes with hydroxylamine hydrochloride and sodium azide in DMF at 120 oC in the presence of Ni-MCM-41 as a catalyst gave 5-substituted 1H-tetrazoles in good to excellent yields (Table 3). It was observed that this optimized reaction condition is well suitable for the conversion of the following aldehydes to tetrazoles: i) substituted aromatic aldehydes with a wide range of electron-withdrawing (entries 2–4) / electron donating groups (entries 5 & 6), ii) multi-substituent groups (entries 7 & 8), iii) fused aromatic aldehyde (entry 9), iv) heteroaromatic aldehydes (entries 10–12) v) aromatic aldehyde with extended conjugation (entry 13) and vi) aliphatic aldehydes (entries 14 & 15).
Table:3
Synthesis of various tetrazoles by Ni-MCM-41 catalyst a
a Reaction conditions: (1 mmol) NH2OH.HCl, (1 mmol) NaN3, (1 mmol) aldehyde, Ni-MCM-41 as catalyst (40 mg, 0.586 mol %) in DMF (5 ml) at 120 oC for conventional method 6 h and microwave method 30 min
b Isolated yield
c Turnover number (TON) = (mmol of product)/ (mmol of catalyst) after time t
d Turnover frequency (TOF) = TON/time (h− 1)
Aromatic aldehyde bearing electron-withdrawing group at the para position (entry 3) results good yield over the substrate with m-substituent (entry 4). This may be due to the facile nature of the substrate with p-substituent. Aromatic aldehydes with electron donating groups such as -OH & -OCH3 (entries 5 & 6) exhibit good yields. Moreover, substrates with multi-substituents, p-vanillin and o-vanillin (entries 7 & 8) exhibit excellent yields. Here, it is noted that o-vanillin gave more yield than p-vanillin. This may be due to the hydroxyl group at 2-position (o-vanillin) increases the electrophilicity of carbonyl carbon of aldehyde by H- bonding whereas at 4-position (p-vanillin) it shows only electron-donating property [48]. Our catalyst has shown very good yields over the substrates of fused aromatics (entry 9) and heterocycles (entries 10–12). The extended conjugation aromatic aldehyde (entry 13) displays moderate yield (75%) whereas aliphatic aldehydes (entries 14 & 15) have offered lower yields (53–54%). These results show that the Ni-MCM-41 is a highly efficient catalyst for the conversion of different aldehydes to tetrazoles irrespective of the electronic properties of the substituents except aliphatic aldehydes.
To compare the catalytic activity of MCM-41, pure Ni-complex and Ni-MCM-41, an aldehyde to tetrazole conversion was performed in the model reaction under microwave irradiation using these catalysts (Fig. 8). The catalyst Ni-MCM-41 shows a preeminent high percentage yield than the other catalysts. It reveals the crucial role of mixed ligand Ni-complex embedded on highly ordered mesoporous structure of Ni-MCM-41 over mere MCM-41 and Ni-complex in the synthesis of tetrazoles.
By comparing the effectiveness of two different energy sources, microwave irradiation technique shows much superiority over conventional heating, not only in terms of lesser reaction time and higher yield but also in terms of much better TON and TOF of the catalytic reactions (Table 3).
The recoverability and reusability of the catalyst was tested in a model reaction under microwave irradiation (Fig. 9). The catalyst was removed by convenient filtration after each cycle and it was reused for five consecutive cycles without any considerable weight loss which indicates the good re-utility of the catalyst with effective catalytic performance. This may be due to the influence of mesoporosity of the material which is almost unaltered even after five cycles.
To illustrate the efficiency of the Ni-MCM-41 catalyst, the catalytic activity is compared with other reported catalysts and is given in Table 4. Though the catalysts on entries 1 and 5 were afforded better yields (96%) than our catalyst (entry 9, 94%) those reactions have been carried out under homogeneous condition and long reaction time (8 h / 12 h). The nano Fe3O4 catalyst (entry 8) gave 92% yield under microwave irradiation, solvent free condition, with the reaction time of 35 min. These results show that our system is comparable or better than other reports on the synthesis of tetrazoles. and it possesses i) economical catalyst ii) environmentally benign- microwave irradiation iii) shorter reaction time and iv) reusability nature.
Table 4
Comparison of efficiency of Ni-MCM-41 as a catalyst against the literature reports in synthesis of 5-substituted − 1H-tetrazole derivatives. a
Entry
|
Catalyst
|
Conditions
|
Yield
(%)
|
Reference
|
1.
|
Ru (p-cymene) (Cl) (L3)
|
DMF, 140 oC, 8h
|
96
|
[49]
|
2.
|
(NH4)2 Ce (SO4)4.2H2O
|
DMF, reflux, 5h
|
72
|
[48]
|
3.
|
P2O5
|
DMF, reflux, 4h
|
90
|
[50]
|
4.
|
I2
|
NH3, THF, RT, 8h
|
90
|
[51]
|
5.
|
Cu(OAc)2
|
DMF, 120 oC, 12h
|
96
|
[21]
|
6.
|
Nano Cu2O-MFR
|
DMF, 100 oC, 8h
|
92
|
[22]
|
7.
|
Cu-MCM-41
|
DMF, 140 oC, 12h
|
90
|
[23]
|
8.
|
Nano Fe3O4
|
Solvent free, 80 oC, microwave irradiation, 35 min
|
92
|
[52]
|
9.
|
Ni-MCM-41
|
DMF, 120 oC, microwave irradiation, 30 min
|
94
|
This work
|
a 5-substituted-1H-tetrazole derivative of benzaldehyde, NH2OH.HCl / NH3 / CH(CN)2 and azide.
The plausible mechanism for the synthesis of 5-substituted 1H-tetrazoles from aldehydes was represented in Scheme 3 using Ni-MCM-41 as a catalyst. Foremost, oxime is formed on the aldehyde under the activation of the carbonyl group of the aldehyde followed by a nucleophilic attack of the nitrogen atom of hydroxylamine. Subsequently, the nitrile product is formed by the elimination of water molecule. The Ni-MCM-41 catalyst activates the nitrile, which in turn initiates the immediate cyclization reaction between the nitrile and azide moiety and leads to the formation of tetrazole intermediate III. Then, the catalyst was removed through filtration, followed by acidification using HCl, the product IV was obtained.
3.8 Selected spectral data for 5-substituted-1H-tetrazole derivatives (supporting information)
S 1 : 2-methoxy-6-(1H-tetrazol-5-yl) phenol (Table 3, entry 8): H1 NMR (400 MHz, DMSO): δH = 3.88 (s, 3H, -OCH3), 6.96-7.00 (t, 1H, Ar-H), 7.16–7.18 (d, 1H, Ar-H), 7.52–7.54 (d, 1H, Ar-H), 10.41 (s, 1H, -NH), 15.14 (s, 1H, -OH) ppm.
S 2 : 1-(1H-tetrazol-5-yl)naphthalen-2-ol (Table 3, entry 9) : H1 NMR (400 MHz, DMSO): δH = 7.29–8.11 (m, 6H, Ar-H), 10.90 (s, 1H, -NH), 11.68 (s, 1H, -OH) ppm.
S 3 : 5-(1H-pyrrol-2-yl)-1H-tetrazole (Table 3, entry 10) : H1 NMR (400 MHz, DMSO): δH = 6.69–7.30 (m, 3H, Ar-H), 11.93 (s, 1H, -NH), 12.02 (s, 1H, -NH) ppm.