Advances in Henry Reaction: A Versatile Method in Organic Synthesis

Henry reaction is an important reaction employing carbonyls which furnishes β-nitro alcohol, nitroalkene, α-nitro ketones, β-amino alcohol as products and byproducts that may be transfigured as building blocks for other synthetic reactions. This paper focuses on various synthetic routes for Henry reaction, a versatile reaction of high significance in organic synthesis. The paper discusses the chemistry and plausible products of the reaction, along with the various available synthetic routes for the same, ranging from classical conventional methods to modern methods of green chemistry trends. Use of various catalysts as rate enhancer as well as use of various catalysts as enantioselective frontman for stereoselective reactions, have been described in this work.