Ohmic heating as a new efficient process for organic synthesis in water

A new and efficient process for organic synthesis in aqueous media based on a direct ohmic heating reactor is described. Four representative organic transformations, a Diels-Alder cycloaddition, a nucleophilic substitution, an N-alkylation and a Suzuki cross-coupling reaction, were performed using this process. The results, when compared with those obtained under conventional external heating (oil bath) and microwave heating, showed that ohmic reactor allows faster and more uniform heating and an induced increase of dynamics/mobility of charged species leading in several cases to higher reaction yields and shorter reaction times.