Sustainable Synthesis of Polynitroesters in the Freon Medium and their in Vitro Evaluation as Potential Nitric Oxide Donors

A highly efficient, safe, and sustainable procedure was developed for the synthesis of various pharmacology-relevant and/or energy-rich nitroesters. It is based on nitration of corresponding alcohols with dinitrogen pentoxide in the liquid 1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane medium. The proposed approach is attractive for commercial applications because it offers significant advantages such as mild and clean reaction conditions, low operation pressure, available equipment, scalability, and facile fluid recycling. Structure-NO donor activity correlations were elucidated by an in vitro Griess assay for synthesized nitroesters and the obtained data may be useful for further in vivo experiments.