Microwave-accelerated Claisen rearrangement in bicyclic imidazolium [b-3C-im][NTf2] ionic liquid

With microwaves, a chemically stable ionic liquid [b-3C-im][NTf2] recently developed in our laboratory was used as solvent and successfully applied to accelerate Claisen rearrangement reactions at high temperatures. In the presence of Lewis acid MgCl2, these thermal rearrangements could be achieved in similar reaction times but at lower temperature. For the microwaved reactions studied in this work, without scarifying isolated yields, the reaction times were significantly reduced from hours (by conventional heating) to ≤3 min. Our result also demonstrated that [b-3C-im][NTf2] ionic liquid was a useful solvent substitute and could be recycled multiple times for the studied rearrangement reaction at elevated temperatures.