Acid‐Activated Carbon Materials: Cheaper Alternative Catalysts for the Synthesis of Substituted Quinolines

Abstract

Abstract We describe the first examples of Friedländer reactions efficiently catalyzed by carbon materials. We report herein a series of acidic activated carbon materials, which can be considered as an environmentally friendly, cheaper alternative to the traditional acidic mesoporous silicates or even zeolites for the synthesis of quinolines/quinolones. Textural parameters of the acidic activated carbon materials together with their acidic properties are important factors that affect the reaction selectivity. Some mechanistic details have been addressed by computational calculations.