Amide functional groups are prominent in a broad range of organic compounds with diverse beneficial applications. In this work, we report the synthesis of these functional groups via an iron(iii) chloride-catalyzed direct amidation of esters. The reactions are conducted under solvent-free conditions and found to be compatible with a range of amine and ester substrates generating the desired amides in short reaction times and good to excellent yields at a catalyst loading of 15 mol%.

The use of catalysts derived from Pd 2 (dba) 3 and phosphatrioxaadamantane framework (Cg) has been demonstrated to facilitate the effective alpha(α)-arylation of ketones using a diverse array of aryl halides under mild reaction conditions (40 °C-80 °C). The evaluation of phosphines with dissimilar stereoelectronic properties revealed the pivotal role of finetuning the ligand's steric bulk. In particular, catalysts based on the Cg-biphenyl ligand (1) proved efficient for facile α-arylation of electronically and sterically diverse aryl bromides and chlorides.