Ethyl Lactate As a Green Solvent: A Promising Bio-compatible Media for Organic Synthesis

Abstract

Background: Solvents are required for most of the chemical transformations to increase the contact between the reagents and catalysts. Solvent also ensures a suitable isolation process of products from the reaction mixture. Ethyl lactate is a bio-based, environmentally benign and economically viable solvent with effectiveness comparable to petroleum-based solvents. This review focuses on the background of this bio-based solvent and the recent application for green chemistry development in this unconventional media. Application of ethyl lactate in organic synthesis: Recently synthetic organic chemists are paying attention to use ethyl lactate as reaction medium as it has some useful advantages. Ethyl lactate has been used for asymmetric induction, multi-component reactions, ligand free coupling reactions, light induced synthesis, stereoselective synthesis, cycloaddtion reaction etc. The advantages and limitations of this solvent are also demonstrated. In this article, we demonstrated some representative examples of organic reactions in ethyl lactate media. Conclusion: Being a promising green media this bio-based solvent ethyl lactate has an important contribution in synthesis and medicinal chemistry as well. Keywords: Ethyl lactate, green solvent, organic synthesis.