Polyethylene glycol in water: A simple and environment friendly media for Strecker reaction

Polyethylene glycol (PEG) in water is found to be an inexpensive, non-toxic and eco-friendly reaction medium for the nucleophilic addition of trimethylsilyl cyanide (TMSCN) to imines (Strecker reaction) to afford α-aminonitriles in excellent yields. This protocol is effective to a wide variety of substrates with different functional groups and does not require the use of acid or base catalyst. PEG can be recovered and reused.

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