Amides imidoyl halide synthesis

Acid amide-triphenylphosphine dihalide adducts (4) have found wide application in organic synthesis. - Synthetic equivalents are adducts (5) from acid amides and triphenylphosphine/CCU, which are prepared in situ from the educts. - With these reagents the following transformations have been performed dehydration of amides or aldoximes to nitriles, preparation of isonitriles from secondary form-amides, preparation of imidoyl halides from amides or acylhydrazines and preparation of ketene imines from amides. Using polymer-supported triphenylphosphine the work-up procedure is much easier to achieve. Triphenylphosphine can be replaced by tris(dialkylamino)phosphines. - Instead of CCI4 hexa-chloroethane, hexabromoethane or l,l,2,2-tetrabromo-l,2-dichloroethane can be used " the adducts thus formed are assumed to be more effective than those from the triphenylphosphine/CCU system. 

In fact, in the synthesis of imidoyl halides derived from N-alkylsubstituted amides, the corresponding iminium salts are obtained as the sole products. The hydrogen halide can be readily removed using an organic base, such as triethylamine, as the hydrogen halide scavenger. 

Phosphanes are widely used as reagents in organic synthesis, triphenylphos-phane being the most commonly applied due to its stability towards oxidation. The polymer-supported analog has so far found use in the transformation of alcohols into alkyl halides and acids into acid halides, using either carbon tetrachloride or carbon tetrabromide as the halogen source (Scheme 6.4) [7, 11-14], This system can also successfully transform primary amides and oximes into nitriles, whereas secondary amides are transformed into imidoyl chlorides (Scheme 6.5) [15],... 

The reaction of thioamides with suitable chlorinating agents, such as phosphorus halides, thionyl chloride, carbonyl chloride, etc., is perhaps the most general method of synthesis of imidoyl chlorides. However, this method has been used only in very few instances because thioamides are less readily available than amides. 

---