Metal-free transfer hydrogenation of nitroarenes in water with vasicine: revelation of organocatalytic facet of an abundant alkaloid.

Vasicine, an abundantly available quinazoline alkaloid from the leaves of Adhatoda vasica, has been successfully employed for metal- and base-free reduction of nitroarenes to the corresponding anilines in water. The method is chemoselective and tolerates a wide range of reducible functional groups, such as ketones, nitriles, esters, halogens, and heterocyclic rings. Dinitroarenes reduced selectively to the corresponding nitroanilines under the present reaction conditions.