Development of a Trimethylamine-Catalyzed Novel Synthesis of Azoxystrobin

We report the development of a novel method for the synthesisofAzoxystrobin, which employs trimethylamine as a catalyst. This appealingcatalytic system offers several advantages, including low cost, excellentreactivity, easy recovery, and the ability to be used repeatedly withminimal environmental impact. Mechanistic studies and density functionaltheory (DFT) calculations suggest that the involvement of a highlyactive quaternary ammonium salt intermediate is likely responsiblefor the efficient catalysis. This can be attributed to the low sterichindrance, flexible bare nature of the lone pair of electrons on thenitrogen atom, and low activation energy barrier of trimethylamine.These findings hold great promise for the mass production of Azoxystrobin.