Multi-component reaction

In chemistry, a multi-component reaction (or MCR) is a chemical reaction where three or more compounds react to form a single product.

Examples of three component reactions:


 * Alkyne trimerisation
 * Biginelli reaction
 * Bucherer-Bergs reaction
 * Gewald reaction
 * Hantzsch pyridine synthesis
 * Kabachnik-Fields Reaction
 * Mannich reaction
 * Passerini reaction
 * Pauson-Khand reaction
 * Strecker amino acid synthesis

Examples of four component reactions:


 * Ugi reaction
 * Asinger reaction

The exact nature of this type of reaction is often difficult to assess, in collision theory a simultaneous interaction of 3 or more different molecules is less likely resulting in a low reaction rate. These reactions are more likely to involve a series of bimolecular reactions.

New MCR's are found by building a chemical library from combinatorial chemistry or by combining existing MCR's. For example, a 7-component MCR results from combining the Ugi reaction with the Asinger reaction. MCR's are an important tool in new drug discovery.

External link

 * Multicomponent reactions

Mehrkomponentenreaktion