Introducing the use of a recyclable solid electrolyte for waste minimization in electrosynthesis: preparation of 2-aryl-benzoxazoles under flow conditions†

Abstract

The necessary use of large amounts of a homogeneous electrolyte represents a major issue and challenge for the whole sustainability of electrosynthetic procedures. Herein, we report the use of a solid ammonium salt (e.g. Amberlyst-400-Cl, Amb-400-Cl) as a reusable electrolyte with excellent performance in the representative electrosynthesis of 2-arylbenzoxazoles. Amb-400-Cl works efficiently without adding any additional supporting electrolytes or mediators, and it can be reused without the need for a regeneration procedure. Exploiting this finding, a sustainable electro-promoted protocol has been developed under batch and flow conditions, which proves that the reported chemical and technological innovation leads to significant improvements compared to the literature processes. Extensive green metrics analysis has also been reported to fully quantify the advances in terms of sustainability.