Sustainable Triazine-Based Dehydro-Condensation Agents for Amide Synthesis.

Conventional methods employed today for the synthesis of amides often lack of economic and environmental sustainability. Triazine-derived quaternary ammonium salts, e.g., 4-(4,6-dimethoxy-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)-4-methylmorpholinium chloride (DMTMM(Cl)), emerged as promising dehydro-condensation agents for amide synthesis, although suffering of limited stability and high costs. In the present work, a simple protocol for the synthesis of amides mediated by 2-chloro-4,6-dimethoxy-1,3,5-triazine (CDMT) and a -amine has been described and data are compared to DMTMM(Cl) and other CDMT-derived quaternary ammonium salts (DMT-Ams(X), X: Cl or ClO). Different -amines (Ams) were tested for the synthesis of various DMT-Ams(Cl), but only DMTMM(Cl) could be isolated and employed for dehydro-condensation reactions, while all CDMT/-amine systems tested were efficient as dehydro-condensation agents. Interestingly, in best reaction conditions, CDMT and 1,4-dimethylpiperazine gave -phenethyl benzamide in 93% yield in 15 min, with up to half the amount of -amine consumption. The efficiency of CDMT/-amine was further compared to more stable triazine quaternary ammonium salts having a perchlorate counter anion (DMT-Ams(ClO)). Overall CDMT/-amine systems appear to be a viable and more economical alternative to most dehydro-condensation agents employed today.