Abstract
Vicinal halohydrins are important and versatile synthetic intermediates in the synthesis of wide range of biologically active natural and synthetic products. Although there are very few reports on ionic liquid (IL) mediated regioselective ring opening of epoxides to halohydrins, limited to utilization of large amount of expensive ILs and longer reaction time. In the present methodology Lewis acidic IL, choline chloride.2ZnCl2 has been explored for the first time as catalyst as well as chlorinating agent for the formation of vicinal-chlorohydrins from epoxides. The protocol is mild, efficient, regioselective and insensitive to many acid sensitive protecting groups. IL reported here is cheap, easy to prepare and required lower amounts (0.25 molar equivalents to the substrate) compared to imidazolium based ILs.
