Aqueous Extract of Musa Acuminata: An Ecofriendly Catalyst for Knoevenagel Condensation

Abstract An efficient and greener approach for Knoevenagel condensation between substituted aldehydes and ketones with active methylene compound as starting substrate has been achieved using aqueous extract of Muca Acuminata as a neutral heterogeneous biocatalyst (Characterized by XRD, TEM, EDS, and ICP‐MS) at room temperature is reported. We found that this method is advantageous over the traditional methods that include refluxing, heating, use of toxic and highly expensive catalyst or solvents and also reduced the reaction time. It is ascertained that the reactions via this protocol are very clean and the isolated crude solid product is more than 95 % pure. The synthesized arylidene compounds exhibited great antioxidant potential and also acts as specific protein‐tyrosine kinase inhibitors and thus serves as an anticancer agent. The final product is separated by simple filtration and is characterized by various spectroscopic techniques like FT‐IR, 1 H‐NMR, 13 C‐NMR, 19 F‐NMR and MS. The cheaper, simple and green approach suggests the possible use of this protocol for large scale preparations.