An efficient and direct carbonylation of aminoquinoline benzamides has been developed using abundant and inexpensive Ni­(OAc)2·4H2O as the catalyst and carbon monoxide as a cost-efficient C1 building block. This process features good functional-group tolerance and can be conducted on gram scale. The directing group can be easily removed under mild conditions.

This study reports a carbonylative acetylation for the synthesis of N-phenyl-N-(pyridin-2-yl)acetamides using N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) as a methyl source and CO as a carbonyl source. Interestingly, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) can be also used as a methyl source when using only DMSO as the solvent. Mechanistic studies using DMSO-d 6 revealed that the methyl group was derived from the methyl group of DMF instead of DMSO when using DMF and DMSO as a mixed solvent. These results indicated that DMF was a preferential methyl source.

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