Triflic Anhydride Promoted Synthesis of Primary Amides and their Conversion into Nitriles

A facile, two-pot conversion of carboxylic acids into the corresponding nitriles has been developed using triflic anhydride as a promoter and aqueous NH4OH as a source of nitrogen. The methodology involves synthesis of primary amides from carboxylic acids as the key first step using triflic anhydride and aqueous NH4OH as a source of nitrogen. Triflic anhydride is also found to be an excellent reagent for conversion of primary amides into nitriles, affording high yields with considerable chemoselectivity and functional group tolerance. In spite of the mild reaction conditions and broad substrate scope for the twostep conversions, all attempts for one-pot domino conversion of acids into nitriles exhibited limited success because of poor yields.