Abstract

The beginning of 1970’s may well be regarded as turning point in the area of organic synthesis when an efficient and straight forward strategy for the reaction of primary and/or secondary alcohols with variety of nucleophiles in the presence of triphenylphosphine and azodicarboxylate reagent was discovered by O. Mitsunobu and since then rapid progress has been made in understanding and applying the Mitsunobu reaction for various derivatization reactions. Due to versatile applications and mild reaction conditions associated with the said strategy, the Mitsunobu reaction has received much attention in the last almost fifty years and has been well reported. The basic objective of this review is to pay attention on the recent advances and applications of the Mitsunobu reaction particularly in last decade. The attention has also been paid to describe various modifications which have been explored in the traditional Mitsunobu reaction by substituting P (III) reagents or azodicarboxylate reagents with other suitable reagents or else using an organocatalyst with the objective to improve upon the traditional Mitsunobu reaction. In the present review we wish to report the major advancements achieved in last few years which are likely to be beneficial for the researchers across the globe.

Keywords: Mitsunobu reaction, macromolecules, immobilized reagents, azodicarboxylate reagent system, nucleophile, organic synthesis.