Dimethyl carbonate as a modern green reagent and solvent

Green Chemistry is a recent phenomenon. Even if environmental statutes and regulations have already proliferated since the early 1960s a combination of factors, including economic, regulatory, scientific, and even social factors make the 1990s the decade during which Green Chemistry was introduced on a wide industrial scale. Since then eco-sustainable solvents and reagents have been widely investigated. In this contest, DMC is a versatile compound which represents an attractive ecofriendly alternative to both methyl halides (or dimethyl sulfate) and phosgene for methylation and carbonylation processes, respectively. DMC, produced nowadays by a clean process, possesses properties of no toxicity, which makes it a true green reagent to be used in syntheses that prevent pollution at the source. The reactivity of DMC is switchable: as it can be used either as methoxycarbonylation or methylation agent with a variety of nucleophiles. Besides, DMC-mediated methylations are catalytic reactions which use safe solids (alkaline carbonates) avoiding the formation of undesirable inorganic salts as by-products. This review reports the latest investigations on DMC focusing on its bench as well as industrial applications.