A new
sustainable green protocol
for obtaining highly fluorogenic heterobioconjugates by a well-known
copper-mediated azide–alkyne cycloaddition click reaction of
nonfluorescent 3-azidocoumarins/benzyl azides (
2a
–
f
) and terminal alkynes (
1a
–
e
) using aqueous NaCl as a cheap and nontoxic salting-out agent under
ultrasonication at ambient temperature is described. The presence
of aqueous NaCl significantly influences the reaction by disturbing
the water kosmotropes and augments the hydrophobic interaction of
water-insoluble reactants, thus making the reaction feasible in water
at neutral pH. The “beauty” of the presented ecofriendly
approach is further boosted up by recycling the aqueous filtrate of
the reaction mixture without further addition of NaCl, CuSO
4
·5H
2
O, and Na ascorbate up to seven cycles, resulting
in effectively low copper loading (100 ppm) with excellent turn-over
number (4850) and turn-over frequency (88.18 min
–1
). A gram-scale synthesis was also successfully achieved with 92%
yield, further elaborating the scope of this methodology.