Decarboxylation Amidation Of α-Keto Acids With Amines

In recent years, transition-metal-catalyzed decarboxylative cross-coupling has received great attention in the formation of carbon–carbon and carbon–heteroatom bonds, owing to acids and their derivatives are usually stable, readily and CO2 as the sole waste product. Different from the traditional cross-coupling methods, which need pre-activated partners such as organometallic reagents and thus generate toxic metal wastes, transition-metal-catalyzed decarboxylative cross-coupling reactions generally prefer to employ a catalytic amount of metal catalysts such as palladium, copper, iron salts, etc.Although some great advances have been achieved in this field, exploitation of the new catalytic C-N bond forming reaction still remains a significant challenge for synthetic chemists. Especially, a catalytic reaction capable of utilizing environmentally friendly and inexpensive substrates and proceeding under mild conditions is still highly desirable.We will present our results on silver-catalyzed decarboxylation of α-oxocarboxylic acids with amines to prepare the useful amides or ureas through C(sp2)–N bond formations. This protocol provides a new approach toward the synthesis of amides and ureas with a wide range of substrate scope, simple and mild reaction conditions, and good yields.