Sustainable and Scalable Two-Step Synthesis of Thenfadil and Some Analogs in Deep Eutectic Solvents: From Laboratory to Industry

A sustainable two-step protocol was developed for the synthesis of the antihistamine drug Thenfadil by combining a reductive amination process with a Cu-catalyzed Ullmann-type C-N coupling reaction run in environmentally responsible deep eutectic solvents (DESs), constructed from biobased compounds. Under optimized conditions, both reactions proceed smoothly under aerobic conditions and in the absence of any additional ligand, with the desired active pharmaceutical ingredient isolated in an overall reaction yield of 39% with an effective suppression of the side products arising from competitive Cu-catalyzed C-O coupling reactions. A novel and simplified workup procedure has also been set up, which avoids the need for chromatographic purification, while allowing the recovery and the recycling of the unreacted intermediate secondary amine. The potential application and the robustness of the proposed methodology has been demonstrated (a) in scale-up studies up to 50 g of substrate in 0.5 kg of DES, taking place with no decrease in the reaction yield, and (b) in the synthesis of three other ethylenediamine derivatives (Thenfadil's analogs) like tripelennamine, methaphenilene, and thonzylamine in 39%-44% overall yield. Typical metrics applied at First and Second Pass, according to the CHEM21 Metrics Toolkit, have been calculated as well for the whole synthetic procedure of Thenfadil and results compared with those of the classical procedure.