Magnetically Recoverable <scp> CuFe ₂ O ₄ </scp> Catalyzed Direct Synthesis of Phenoxypyrimidines From Arylboronic Acids and Chloropyrimidines: A Heterogeneous Avenue

ABSTRACT Majority of the established procedures of synthesizing phenoxypyrimidines employ phenols and their simple salts as one of the substrates. However, phenols are toxic and can initiate secondary and tertiary burns when come into direct contact with the skin. Recently, our research group developed a very efficient homogeneous reaction protocol for cascade synthesis of phenoxypyrimidines starting from chloropyrimidines and arylboronic acids that could avoid use of phenols as substrate in presence of Cu(NO 3 ) 2 •H 2 O as a catalyst and DABCO as a ligand. The current work describes our first effort to develop a heterogeneous reaction protocol for the same. Magnetically active CuFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles were prepared and checked for the purpose. CuFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles prepared in presence of 1 wt.% of cetyltributylammonium‐bromide (CTAB) as surfactant have been found effective to carry out the transformation in aqueous medium. Generality of the developed protocol has been demonstrated by synthesizing 15 numbers of phenoxypyrimidines. The catalyst system can be recovered very easily, and it is reused up to 4th run without any significant loss in activity. While laboratory prepared CuFe 2 O 4 nanoparticles were characterized using FT‐IR, XRD, and SEM–EDX analyses, all the synthesized compounds were characterized using 1 H and 13 C NMR spectroscopy.