Recent Highlights in Micellar Catalysis: An Industrial Outlook

From the context of sustainability, contemporary synthetic organic chemistry practices require significant transformation, as indicated by various sustainability matrices like atom economy, process mass intensity (PMI), E-factor, and DOZN. These factors have evidently unveiled the inherent inefficiencies intrinsic to conventional protocols and identified organic solvents as the principal causative agent. In response, the utilization of water as a primary reaction medium for organic transformations has emerged as an appealing alternative. This approach flourished with the emergence of micellar catalysis, where the amphiphilic molecules alter the bulk aqueous medium's solvation properties and promote the desired chemical transformation under milder and sustainable conditions. After 2010, this technology gained considerable momentum and established the foundational framework for performing organic reactions under aqueous conditions, consequently mitigating the dependency on hazardous organic solvents. In this perspective, recent advances in the field of micellar catalysis in water will be discussed in the context of industrial applications, along with the future directions and challenges associated with this regime.