Facile and efficient one-pot synthesis of benzimidazoles using lanthanum chloride.

Background: We report the synthesis of benzimidazoles using lanthanum chloride as an efficient catalyst. One-pot synthesis of 2-substituted benzimidazole derivatives from o-phenylenediamine and a variety of aldehydes were developed under mild reaction conditions.

Results: We have examined the effect of different solvents using the same reaction conditions.