Cross‐Coupling of Secondary Amides with Tertiary Amides: The Use of Tertiary Amides as Surrogates of Alkyl Carbanions for Ketone Synthesis

An Efficient and Straightforward Approach for Accessing Thioesters via Palladium-Catalyzed C-N Cleavage of Thioamides

We first report the coupling of activated thioamides with alcohols to efficiently form thioesters via palladium-catalyzed C-N cleavage strategy. The new approach employs the thioamides as thioacylating reagent to give...

Direct alkylation of N,N-dialkyl benzamides with methyl sulfides under transition metal-free conditions

Amides are a fundamental and widespread functional group, and are usually considered as poor electrophiles owing to resonance stabilization of the amide bond. Various approaches have been developed to address challenges in amide transformations. Nonetheless, most methods use activated amides, organometallic reagents or transition metal catalysts. Here, we report the direct alkylation of N,N-dialkyl benzamides with methyl sulfides promoted by the readily available base LDA (lithium diisopropylamide). This approach successfully achieves an efficient and selective synthesis of α-sulfenylated ketones without using transition-metal catalysts or organometallic reagents. Preliminary mechanism studies reveal that the deprotonative aroylation of methyl sulfides is promoted by the directed ortho-lithiation of the tertiary benzamide with LDA.

Copper-catalyzed deaminative alkynylation of secondary amines with alkynes: selectivity switch in the synthesis of diverse propargylamines

The copper-catalyzed selective deamination and alkynylation of the unsymmetrical secondary amines with terminal alkynes was reported with a broad substrate scope and excellent functional compatibility.

Coupling of amides with ketones via C–N/C–H bond cleavage: a mild synthesis of 1,3-diketones

Amides react with enolizable ketones to give 1,3-diketones via C–N cleavage of amides and deprotonation of ketones.