Multicomponent reactions and their libraries - A new approach to preparative organic chemistry

Classical chemical syntheses from n starting materials usually require sequences of at least n-I preparation steps, including separation and purification of the intermediates. A perfect alternative for the rapid syntheses of a large variety of agrichemically and pharmaceutically relevant products are one-pot syntheses by multicomponent reactions (MCR)on the basis of isocyanides. Four to seven different types of components mixed in areaction vessel undergo the transformation to one molecule. Due to the last irreversible step that involves the isocyanides, a stable product results in quantitative yields. Using more than one representative of each type of starting materials (i.e. different isocyanides, amines, etc.) in the same vessel, all possible combinations will lead to a molecular library with hundreds and thousands of products formed according to a given reaction scheme. The design of such syntheses and the handling of the results require adequate mathematics and computer tools.