Ammonia with esters

Lactamide has been prepared by the action of gaseous ammonia on ethyl lactate 3 and from lactic anhydride 4 and gaseous ammonia. It has been made also by the action of ammonia gas on lactide.5 The amide was obtained in excellent yields by treatment of the acetone condensation product of lactic acid with ammonia.6 Amides have been prepared by the reaction of liquid ammonia with esters at temperatures varying from — 330 to... 

You can also react ammonia with esters to prepare primary amides. 

Acid Amides can be produced by acylating ammonia with esters, acid anhydrides, or the acids themselves (above 100 °C) an important product is formamide from methyl formate. Alternatively acid amides can be synthesized by reacting acid halides with ammonia. Catalytic hydrogenation converts the acid amides to primary amines. Ammonia and aldehydes or ketones are the basis for different stable products. With formaldehyde hexamethylenetetramine (urotropine) is obtained with acetaldehyde, ammono acetaldehyde with benzaldehyde, hydrobenzamide with ethylene and propylene oxides, aqueous ammonia reacts to form ethanol- or propanolamine. 

Primary amides have the general formula RCONH2. They can be prepared by the reaction of ammonia with esters (eq. 10.24), with acyl halides (eq. 10.36), or with acid anhydrides (eq. 10.39). Amides can also be prepared by heating the ammonium salts of acids. 

The reaction of ammonia and amines with esters follows the same general mech anistic course as other nucleophilic acyl substitution reactions (Figure 20 6) A tetrahe dral intermediate is formed m the first stage of the process and dissociates m the second stage... 

Methylpyrazine reacts with sodamide in liquid ammonia to generate the anion, which may be alkylated to give higher alkylpyrazines (Scheme 10) (61JOC3379). The alkylpyrazines have found extensive use as fiavouring and aroma agents (see Section 2.14.4). Condensation reactions with esters, aldehydes and ketones are common, e.g. methyl benzoate yields phenacylpyrazine in 95% yield, and reactions of this type are summarized in Scheme 11. 

The reduction of a benzenoid ring, except in benzoic acid derivatives, occurs only in the presence of a proton donor having a pKa of 19 or less (pKa of ammonia is about 33). With the exception of the vinyl group, the other functional groups listed above do not require a proton donor of this acidity in order to be reduced, although the course of reduction may then be complex, e.g. as with esters. " Consequently, a variety of functional groups should be capable of selective reduction in the presence of a benzenoid ring if the reaction medium does not contain an acid of pKa <19. A few examples of such selective reductions have been reported in the steroid literature. 

For the methylation of the free hydroxyl groups of a partially esterified carbohydrate, e.g., of a partially acetylated compound, only the Purdie method is available. Although liquid ammonia does not react with esters at — 70°C., there is a danger of saponification if the temperature of the reaction mixture is allowed to rise before all the ammonia has been removed. The aqueous alkali employed in the methods of Haworth or Menzies will, of course, remove ester groups by hydrolysis. 

Feuer and co-workers also nitrated ring-substituted toluenes to the corresponding arylnitromethanes with potassium amide in liquid ammonia. Sulfonate esters and NJ -dialkylamides undergo similar nitration the latter isolated as their a-bromo derivatives. Alkaline nitration of ethyl and ferf-butyl carboxylic esters with potassium amide in liquid ammonia yields both the a-nitroester and the corresponding nitroalkane from decarboxylation. ... 

Amines also react with esters by a method similar to the reaction of an acid chloride with an cimine (which was described in the previous section, From acid chlorides ). Figure 12-28 illustrates the formation of benzamide by this type of reaction, using ammonia and methyl benzoate. Again, the mechanism is similar to the reaction of an acid chloride with an amine (Figure 12-26). 

The barbiturates were widely used as sedative-hypnotic drugs. Barbital was introduced as a drug in 1903. The method of synthesis for thousands of its analogs has undergone little change. Urea reacts with various derivatives of malonic acid, usually a diethyl ester of a dialkyl substituted malonic acid. This is a classic example of a nucleophilic acyl substitution. A derivative of ammonia reacts with esters to form an amide, only in this case a cyclization to a strainless six-membered ring results because of the proximity of the bifunctionality. 

The divergent method is illustrated in Fig. 2-22 for the synthesis of polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers [Tomalia et al., 1990]. A repetitive sequence of two reactions are used—the Michael addition of an amine to an a,P-unsaturated ester followed by nucleophilic substitution of ester by amine. Ammonia is the starting core molecule. The first step involves reaction of ammonia with excess methyl acrylate (MA) to form LXIII followed by reaction with excess ethylenediamine (EDA) to yield LXIV. LXV is a schematic representation of the dendrimer formed after four more repetitive sequences of MA and EDA. 

THE REACTION OF AMMONIA WITH ACYL ESTERS OF CARBOHYDRATE S ... 

REACTION OF AMMONIA WITH CARBOHYDRATE ACYL ESTERS 83... 

In the reaction of ammonia with l,3,4,5-tetra-0-benzoyl-/3-n-fructopyranose, a significant proportion of benzoic acid was formed, indicating that the ammonolysis of the sugar ester occurred to a certain extent through acyloxy-group rupture. As neither the formation of imidazole nor of pyrazine derivatives (see Section VI,3, p. 124) re-... 

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