Study On The Organic Acid-Catalyzed Transamidation Reactions Of Amide With Amines

The amide linkage is one of the most important functional groups in nature because it constitutes the backbone of all natural peptides and proteins. Amides, as an important class of compounds, have been widely found in bioactive products, synthetic polymers and drug molecules. Therefore, the construction of the amides has been the focus of research in organic synthesis.Although the transamidation reactions developed late in so many amide synthesis methods, due to its direct, simple and effective exhibited in the systhesis of secondary amides and tertiary amides, this method has attracted more and more attention. So, we developed an efficient and simple method for the transamidation of carboxamides, phthalimide, ureas and thioamide with amines catalyzed by commercially available benzoic acid under metal-free condition. In many organic acids we found that benzoic acid was the best catalyst. Wide range of substrates and good to excellent yields had been obtained in this Benzoic Acid-Catalyzed reaction system. Simultaneously, our current method had a very good selectivity, the amide only react with aliphatic amines when aromatic amines and aliphatic amines are present in the reaction system at the same time. Similarly, the amide only react with primary amine when primary amine and secondary amines are present in the reaction system at the same time.