The
reactions of thioamides with azides in water were studied.
It was reliably shown that the reaction of 2-cyanothioacetamides 1 with various types of azides 2 in water in
the presence of alkali presents an efficient, general, one-step, atom-economic,
and eco-friendly method for the synthesis of 1,2,3-thiadiazol-4-carbimidamides 5 and 1,2,3-triazole-4-carbothioamides 4. This
method can be extended to the one-pot reaction of sulfonyl chlorides
and 6-chloropyrimidines 2′o with sodium azide,
leading to final products in higher yields, that is, avoiding the
isolation of unsafe sulfonyl azides. The method was furthermore applied
to the reaction of N,N′-bis-(2-cyanothiocarbonyl)pyrazine 1h with sulfonyl azides to afford bicyclic 1,2,3-thiadiazoles 8 and 1,2,3-triazoles 9 connected via a 1,1′-piperazinyl
linker. 2-Cyanothioacetamides 1 were also shown to react
with aromatic azides in water in the presence of alkali to afford
1-aryl-5-amino-1,2,3-triazole-4-carbothioamides 11. In
contrast to aromatic azides and similarly to sulfonyl azides, 6-azidopyrimidine-2,4-diones 2o–q react with cyanothioacetamides to form N-pyrimidin-6-yl-5-dialkylamino-1,2,3-thiadiazole-4-N-l-carbimidamides 12. A mechanism was proposed
to rationalize the role of water in changing the reactivity of azides
toward 2-cyanothioacetamides.