Acidic-functionalized ionic liquid as an efficient, green, and metal-free catalyst for benzylation of sulfur, nitrogen, and carbon nucleophiles to benzylic alcohols

A series of HSO4− functionalized ILs was synthesized and used as efficient, green, and metal-free catalysts for benzylation. Notably, the catalytic system has wide substrate scopes and the ionic liquid catalysts were applied to investigate three different types of nucleophiles to give the desired benzylation products with moderate to excellent yields.