Abstract

Alkoxmethyl heterocycles play a significant role as bioactive compounds in pharmaceutical and bifunctional ligands in synthetic organic chemistry. N-Alkoxmethylation can lead toward multipurpose mixed acetals, natural product precursors, and task-specific functionalized ionic liquids. This report provides a comprehensive account of the synthesis and perspectives applications of alkoxymethyl azaheterocycles. The first part gives a detailed account of the different synthetic strategies employed to access N-alkoxy methyl heterocyclic compounds. The second part deals with their applications, owing to the unique reactivity of the alkoxymethyl group and the nature of heterocycle. Besides diverse biological and synthetic applications, alkoxymethyl benzotriazoles also provide substantial scope as a versatile anion stabilizer that can lead to diverse oxygen functionalities.

Keywords: N-alkoxymethylation, functionalized azahetrocycles, oxidative coupling, task-specific ionic liquids, charge stabilizer, methylal-anion equivalent, propenoyl-anion equivalent, acyl-anion equivalent, homo-enolate anion, bifunctional ligands, mixed acetals, chiral discrimination.