Knoevenagel reaction promoted by functional ionic liquids with primary and tertiary amines

Functional ionic liquids have been widely used in the fields of synthetic chemistry, analytical chemistry, electrochemistry and material chemistry owing to their excellent properties such as easy structure modification and adjustable properties. In this work, a series of basic functionalized ionic liquids were prepared from 1, 4-diazabicyclo [2.2.2] octane (DABCO) or hexamethylenetetramine (HMTA) with various halogenated hydrocarbons, then these functional ionic liquids and water were used as solvent-catalyst system in the Knoevenagel reaction of various aldehydes with ethyl cyanoacetate or malononitrile, the influence of the structure of the ionic liquid and the content of water was investigated. The results showed that the composite solvent-catalyst system mixed by the functional ionic liquid N-(3-aminopropyl)-1,4-diazabicyclo [2.2.2] octane bromide with water can effectively promote the Knoevenagel reaction and the alkalinity of amine and hydrogen bond play an important role. Aromatic aldehydes with electron-donating or electron-withdrawing groups can obtain the target product at an excellent yield (79-99%). It is worth noting that the polycyclic aromatic aldehydes with high steric hindrance, 86%-95% yields of the object products were also obtained after 15 h-25 h. Furthermore, the catalyst could be reused for 6 times without any loss in its catalytic activity.