Effectiveness of the hydrophobic core of pyridine tethered N-acyl glycine micelles in improving chromenoquinoline synthesis in water

The organic transformations in water are considered a safe, non-toxic, economical, and eco-friendly alternative. A new series of amphiphile, N-acyl-N-(pyridin-2-ylmethyl)glycine (PyNAG) with variable hydrophobicity was successfully synthesized from glycine. The self-assembly properties were characterized by critical micellar concentration (CMC), aggregation number (Nagg), and diameter (DH). The PyNAG with N- stearoyl moiety showed lower CMC, higher Nagg, and larger DH compared to PyNAG with N- lauryl moiety. Molecular dynamics simulation reveals that the micelle structure is compact and non-bonded energy contribution arises from electrostatic, and van der Walls forces contribute to perfect packing and micelle formation. The ability of the PyNAG micelles to execute important organic transformations in water was demonstrated through synthesizing chromenoquinoline via the Povarov reaction. Micelles with varying diameters were used to conduct the Povarov reaction in order to better understand the functions of the hydrophobicity core of the micellar environment in organic reactions. The results reveal that the Povarov reaction produces a good yield in N-stearoyl-N-(pyridin-2-ylmethyl)glycine (PyN18G) micelles, better than organic solvent and commercial surfactant. Moreover, a linear correlation between the yield and the hydrophobicity of the PyNAG was observed. The findings demonstrate that the micellar interior significantly affects the reactivity of the substrate, which should be taken into consideration while creating new media for metal-catalyzed green synthesis.