Manganese-Mediated Reductive Transamidation of Tertiary Amides with Nitroarenes

Amides are an important class of organic compounds, which have widespread industrial applications. Transamidation of amides is a convenient method to generate new amides from existing ones. Tertiary amides, however, are challenging substrates for transamidation. Here we describe an unconventional approach to the transamidation of tertiary amides using nitroarenes as the nitrogen source under reductive conditions. Manganese metal alone mediates the reactions and no additional catalyst is required. The method exhibits broad scope and high functional group tolerance.