Nickel (II)-Catalyzed efficient aminocarbonylation of unreactive alkanes with formanilides—Exploiting the deformylation behavior of imides

Article abstract of DOI:10.1016/j.tet.2018.05.045

Challenging functionalization of C(sp³)-H has recently attracted much attention of organic chemists. In this paper, we developed a Ni(acac)₂-catalyzed activation of unreactive alkanes with formanilides in the presence of carbon monoxide to furnish moderate to excellent yields of amides. This is the first example of aminocarbonylation of inert alkanes using nickel-based catalyst, and formanilides is disclosed to be an interesting amine source owing to the peculiar deformylation nature of imide intermediates.