Efficient Synthesis of 2, 3-Dihydroquinazolin-4(1H)-ones in the Presence of Ferrite/Chitosan as a Green and Reusable Nanocatalyst

In this work, an efficient and facile method has been developed for the synthesis of 2,3-dihydroquinazolin-4(1H)-ones from a condensation reaction of 2-aminobenzamide with various alkyl, aryl and alicyclic aldehydes or ketones using Fe3O4/chitosan as an environmentally benign, magnetically recoverable nanocomposite catalyst in ethanol at room temperature in high to excellent yields under mild reaction conditions. The Fe3O4/chitosan composite nanocatalyst was first prepared by a sol-gel method and characterized by using a variety of conventional techniques including Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analyses. The present work include several advantages such as avoiding the use of toxic solvents or expensive catalysts, generality, high yields, short reaction times, clean reaction profile, ease of product isolation, simplicity, recyclability of the catalyst and finally agreement with the green chemistry protocols. All make it a useful and attractive protocol for the synthesis of heterocyclic compounds like quinazolinone derivatives.