Environmentally benign aminolysis of lactones in acidic hydrophobic ionic liquids

Hydroxyalkyl amides are ubiquitous compounds of particular significance and an emerging strategy in synthesizing pharmaceuticals. Consequently, noticeable research has developed simple approaches to this functional group transformation. However, this procedure often has limited substrate scopes, harsh reaction conditions, and widespread pollution. Herein, the synthesis of novel hydrophobic acidic ionic liquid-based surfactants (AIL) as promising recyclable ionic system and their applications in direct amidation was presented. Acidic ionic liquids surfactants (AIL) are prepared easily from readily available benzyl dimethyl hexadecyl ammonium chloride and SbCl3 and are characterized by characterization techniques like EDS, NMR and FTIR spectroscopy. AIL showed an effective catalyst and reaction media for rapid ammonolysis of various Lactones with a broad range of amines under mild reaction conditions. This process is simple and chemoselective, with a range of primary, secondary, aliphatic, and aromatic amines in good to excellent yield. The AIL system was successfully recycled five times.