A General and Efficient Heterogeneous Gold‐Catalyzed Hydration of Nitriles in Neat Water under Mild Atmospheric Conditions

Mild, efficient and general: Titania decorated with nanometer-sized gold particles acts as an efficient catalyst for the selective hydration of a wide range of chemically diverse nitriles into valuable amides in neutral water, under mild atmospheric conditions (see image). The process shows promise for a facile and direct one-pot synthesis of ε-caprolactam, an industrially important molecule, starting from 6-aminocapronitrile. Detailed facts of importance to specialist readers are published as ”Supporting Information”. Such documents are peer-reviewed, but not copy-edited or typeset. They are made available as submitted by the authors. Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing content) should be directed to the corresponding author for the article.