Conversion of Amides into Esters by the Nickel-Catalyzed Activation of Amide C-N Bonds

The amide function is ubiquitous in natural compounds as well as in man-made molecules and materials. It is generally very stable and poorly reactive owing to its resonance-stabilized C–N group that imparts a planar geometry to amides. In contrast, carboxylic esters are generally reactive under a variety of mild conditions; therefore, it is not surprising that a number of direct methods are available to the chemist for converting esters into amides (amino-de-alkoxylation reaction) but very few for achieving the opposite transformation. Recently, Professors Neil Garg and Ken Houk from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA, USA) reported in Nature a groundbreaking method for converting amides into esters with a high degree of efficiency

Scalable and chromatography-free synthesis of 2-(2-formylalkyl)arenecarboxylic acid derivatives through the supramolecularly controlled hydroformylation of vinylarene-2-carboxylic acids

This protocol describes how to prepare 2-(2-formylalkyl)-arenecarboxylic acid derivatives, common building blocks for the synthesis of various valuable chemicals (e.g., anti-obesity and Alzheimer's disease treatment pharmaceuticals), by using the fully regioselective hydroformylation of vinyl arene derivatives. This catalytic reaction proceeds cleanly with 100% regioselectivity and chemoselectivity. The procedure is reliably scalable and can be efficiently conducted on a multigram scale. The analytically pure product is easily isolated with a nearly quantitative yield by using a simple acid-base extraction workup and avoids any tedious chromatography. This protocol details the synthesis of a bisphosphite ligand (L1) that is a pivotal element of the catalytic system used, Rh(acac)(CO)(2) with ligand L1, starting from commercial building blocks. The protocol also describes a general procedure for the preparative hydroformylation of vinylarene-2-carboxylic acid derivatives to 2-formylalkylarene products, providing a representative example for the hydroformylation of 2-vinylbenzoic acid (1a) to 2-(3-oxopropane)-benzoic acid (2a). The synthesis of L1 (six chemical reactions) uses 2-nitrophenylhydrazine, 4-benzyloxybenzoylchloride and (S)-binol, and takes 5-7 working days. The actual hydroformylation reaction of each vinyl arene derivative takes similar to 4 h of active effort over a period of 1-3 d