Base-Promoted Nitrile-Alkyne Domino-Type Cyclization: A General Method to Trisubstituted Imidazoles.

An efficient base promoted nitrile-alkyne domino-type cyclization for multicomponent assembly of imidazoles from alkynes, nitriles, and tBuOK has been developed, which could run even in the absence of solvent on a gram scale with complete atom economy. This method contributes directly to reaching the synthesis of valuable imidazole derivatives from readily available raw materials.