The demands for green and sustainable synthetic methods in the fields of healthcare and fine chemicals, combined with the pressure to produce these substances expeditiously and in an environmentally benign fashion, pose significant challenges to the synthetic chemical community. Green chemistry can avoid pollution by utilizing techniques that are environmentally friendly by design and one of the best green techniques is the use of microwave (MW) assisted aqueous synthetic protocols. Fusing MW technique with water (as a benign reaction medium) can offer an extraordinary synergistic effect with greater potential than these two individual components in isolation. Selective microwave heating can be exploited to develop a high yield protocol and the use of water expedites the MW-protocol with more energy efficiency.

This book provides an overview of the various processes developed using aqueous microwave chemistry and is written for chemists, chemical engineers and researchers in the early stages who want to develop sustainable and green processes. Written by well known microwave experts, the book is a comprehensive examination of the field and is the first book that deals strictly with aqueous microwave chemistry and represents a significant effort towards green chemistry. It covers all the microwave-assisted aqueous reactions in depth, including heterocycle synthesis, metal catalysis, enzyme catalysis, polymer synthesis, nanomaterials synthesis and nano-catalysis. Each chapter contains representative experimental procedures, helping the reader quickly replicate some of the experiments to gain hands-on experience.