Microwave-Induced Synthesis of Bioactive Nitrogen Heterocycles

There are many different applications of heterocyclic molecules in pharmaceutical and materials science, which make them an important family of compounds. Among these heterocyclic compounds, nitrogen-containing heterocyclic (N-heterocyclic) compounds have attracted a lot of interest among researchers due to their various applications across a wide variety of fields. Many studies have been performed over the past few years to study the synthesis of N-heterocycles under different reaction conditions, such as solvent-free, catalytic conditions, reactants immobilized on a solid support, one-pot synthesis, and microwave irradiation. Our research group has demonstrated that microwaves can be utilized for rapid and efficient synthesis of biologically active compounds. In this review, we provide an overview of the microwave-assisted non-catalytic and catalytic preparation of nitrogen-containing heterocycles, mostly polycyclic N-heterocycles, five-membered Nheterocycles, six-membered N-heterocycles, and fused N-heterocycles. In this review, we explore the microwave-assisted preparation of biologically important compounds, such as pyrimidines, thiazoles, imines, tetrazoles, steroidal derivatives, quinolines, indolizine, triazoles, beta-lactams, pyrroles, and quinoxalines.