BF·OEt-mediated transamidation of unprotected primary amides under solvent-free conditions.

A BF·OEt-mediated transamidation between unactivated amides and amines is reported, enabling access to diverse secondary and tertiary amides under transition-metal-free and solvent-free conditions. The operationally simple procedure provides a novel manifold for converting amide-amide bonds with excellent chemoselectivity. In particular, a series of amides including challenging thioamides enable direct transamidation to products with modest to excellent yields. Meanwhile, additional experiments were conducted to elucidate the mechanism of this transformation, and a plausible mechanism was proposed based on the results and related literature.