Iron-Catalyzed Inexpensive and Practical Synthesis of N-Substituted Pyrroles in Water

An operationally simple, practical, and economical protocol for iron(III) chloride catalyzed Paal-Knorr pyrrole synthesis in water in good to excellent yields has been developed. Several N-substituted pyrroles are readily prepared from the reaction of 2,5-dimethoxytetrahydrofuran and aryl/alkyl, sulfonyl and acyl amines under very mild reaction conditions