Isothiocyanates, addition from dithiocarbamic acid

Without additional reagents Isothiocyanates from dithiocarbamic acid esters... 

Salts of dithiocarbamic acid can be prepared by the addition of primary or secondary amines to carbon disulfide. This reaction is similar to 16-9. Hydrogen sulfide can be eliminated from the product, directly or indirectly, to give isothiocyanates (RNCS). Isothiocyanates can be obtained directly by the reaction of primary amines and CS2 in pyridine in the presence of DCC. ° In the presence of diphenyl phosphite and pyridine, primary amines add to CO2 and to CS2 to give, respectively, symmetrically substituted ureas and thioureas ... 

Despite the chemical diversity of the several hundred structures representing herbicidal activity, most reactions of herbicides fall within only a limited number of mechanistic types oxidation, reduction, nucleophilic displacements (such as hydrolysis), eliminations, and additions. "Herbicides", after all, are more-or-less ordinary chemicals, and their principal transformations in the environment are fundamentally no different from those in laboratory glassware. Figure 2 illustrates three typical examples which have received their share of classical laboratory study—the alkaline hydrolysis of a carboxylic ester (in this case, an ester of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, IX), the cycloaddition of an alcohol to an olefin (as in the acetylene, VI), and the 3-elimination of a dithiocarbamate which provides the usual synthetic route to an isothiocyanate (conversion of an N.N-dimethylcarbamic acid salt, XI, to methyl isothiocyanate). Allow the starting materials herbicidal action (which they have), give them names such as "2,4-D ester" or "pronamide" or "Vapam", and let soil form the walls of an outdoor reaction kettle the reactions and products remain the same. 

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