A Review on Molecular Iodine Catalyzed/Mediated Multicomponent Reactions

In multicomponent reactions, three or more reactants combine in one pot to form a product without the isolation of intermediate and most of the reactants contribute to newly formed product reducing number of steps involved and waste generated. Molecular iodine is mild, efficient, relatively nontoxic, inexpensive, commercially available, and catalyzes various organic reactions due to its Lewis acidic behaviour. The development of multicomponentreactions catalyzed by molecular iodine indeed is a good green alternative for synthetic organic chemistry. The aim of this article is to review all important multicomponent reactions catalyzed by molecular iodine reported since 2013 in order to envisage some new efficient protocols for the synthesis of structurally complex molecules.