The microwave-assisted aminocarbonylation of ynamides at low pressures of CO is reported. A new class of (E)-acrylamides that are potentially suitable for several applications has been regioselectively synthesized after microwave irradiation for only 20 min by using eco-friendly [Fe(3)(CO)(12)] as the catalyst precursor and triethylamine as the ligand. This transformation is atom economic as all reactants are used in stoichiometric quantities. Furthermore, the transformation is efficiently applied to the alkoxycarbonylation of alkynes as well. Moreover, running these reactions under microwave irradiation allows the simplification of the reaction conditions with remarkable reductions in time, temperature and gas pressure.

In a new version of the Fischer indole synthesis, primary and secondary alcohols have been catalytically oxidized in the presence of phenylhydrazines and protic or Lewis acids to give the corresponding indoles. The overall reaction can be accomplished in one step, and the use of alcohols instead of aldehyes or ketones as starting materials has several advantages in terms of a large selection of reagents, easy handling, and safety of the process.

The synthesis of benzimidazoles starting from o-phenylenediamines and amines in the presence of palladium on charcoal as catalyst is reported. Under microwave dielectric heating it is possible to use a tertiary, a secondary, and even a primary amine as the substrate for a palladium-mediated process to get 2-substituted or 1,2-disubstituted benzimidazoles, depending on the nature of the o-phenylenediamine employed. Primary amines are the most suitable reagents for the atom economy of the overall process that resulted to be general as several different substituted benzimidazoles were obtained in good yield. Benzoxazoles can be also prepared starting from primary amines and o-aminophenol. The reaction is also highly selective as no (poly)-alkylated pheny-A C H T U N G T R E N N U N G lenediamines or cross-contaminated benzimidazoles are obtained starting from N-monoalkylphenylenediamines. This behavior was interpreted as a scarce aptitude to dehydrogenation of the methylene bonded to the aromatic NH of N-alkylarylamines. The experiments carried out consent to draw an almost complete picture of the reaction pathways occurring during the process. The catalyst can be recycled several times and, although far from optimal performances, catalyst TON = 90 is encouraging for further large-scale optimization protocols. In addition, the palladium on charcoal-catalyzed microwave-assisted reaction of o-phenylenediamine gives de-alkylation of tertiary amines and transformation into the secondary ones.

Review: 44 refs.

Heterogeneous Catalyst. -A simple protocol for the Pd-C mediated oxidation of primary amines to imines followed by aniline addition is developed. The reaction can be carried out in both THF or ionic liquid medium. -(LINCIANO, P.; PIZZETTI, M.; PORCHEDDU, A.; TADDEI*, M.; Synlett 24 (2013) 17, 2249-2254, http://dx.