N,N‐Dimethylformamide andN,N‐Dimethylacetamide as Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, and/or Oxygen Sources

A variety of chemical reactions are best carried out in N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) or N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMAc) than in other solvents. The interest of these polar solvents is not only their high dissolution power of various classes of substrates and their capacity to solvate anions. Moreover, these solvents can participate in dehydration, dehydrogenation, deprotection, halogenation, reactions, in reductive carbonylation of transition metals, as catalysts, promoters, hydroxyl/halogen or halogen/alkoxy exchange mediators, sources of base, reducing agents, or radicals. Besides, both DMF and DMAc are implied in a multitude of reactions in giving one or more of their own atoms to build the framework of the synthesized products. This chapter discusses reactions leading to amides or thioamides, and contains reactions occurring from the addition of one DM fragment to afford other compounds that bear the CONMe2 function. In contrast, procedures leading to amides from incorporation of more than one fragment of DM into the substrate are gathered.