An Environmentally-Benign Synthesis of Spiro-benzo[1,4]diazepines Using Multi Phase Nano-titania as a Highly Efficient Catalyst via MAOS Technique

Aim and Objective: Benzodiazepines and indole fused heterocycles are pharmacologically significant scaffolds. Trivial work on indole fused benzodiazepine compounds is reported in the literature. Hence, it is imperative to explore the synthesis of indole-fused benzodiazepines that may act as a template for biological studies in the future. Hence, in the present work, the synthesis of indole fused benzodiazepine derivatives was undertaken using multi-phase nano-titania as catalyst under microwave irradiation. Materials and Methods: MAOS technique was used to carry out the synthesis of spiro-benzo [1,4]diazepine derivatives in the presence of multiphase nano-titania as a catalyst. Nano-titania was prepared by sol-gel method and characterized by XRD, FT-IR, FESEM, EDS and thermogravimetric techniques. The synthesized spiro-benzo [1,4] diazepine derivatives were identified by physical and spectral methods. Results: Synthesized compounds were obtained in excellent yields in a short span of time. The synthesis was also carried out in the presence of conventional catalysts in addition to nano-titania. Among all the catalysts, the best result was obtained with nano-titania. The amount of nano-titania was optimized to be 0.05g giving 93- 95% yield of products. The study of reusability of nano-titania revealed that it could be reused up to four times with a negligible change in efficiency. Conclusion: The paper reports an efficient, cost-effective and environmentally benign approach for the synthesis of spiro-benzo [1,4] diazepine derivatives in the presence of multiphase nano-titania catalyst under microwave irradiation.