FeCl2-Catalyzed Oxidative Amidation of Aldehydes with Primary and Secondary Amines

The amidation reaction is an important process in both academia and industry for the synthesis of natural products, functional polymers, and pharmaceuticals. The development of new amidation methods for constructing such important class of organic compounds is still attracting considerable interests. We herein reported a general oxidative amidation of aldehydes with a variety of free primary or secondary amines using inexpensive iron(II) chloride as catalyst and tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) as oxidant. The present amidation reactions afford the corresponding secondary and tertiary amides in moderate to excellent yields. In addition, the amidations of benzimidazole and pyrazole were also achieved by the developed method.