2-Aminobenzothiazoles comprise a
valuable structural motif, which
prevails in versatile natural products and biologically active compounds.
Herein, a switchable and scalable C–N coupling protocol was
developed for the synthesis of these compounds from 2-chlorobenzothiazoles
and primary amines. Gratifyingly, this protocol was achieved under
transition-metal-free and solvent-free conditions. Moreover, introducing
an appropriate amount of NaH completely switched the selectivity from
mono- toward di-heteroarylation, and further investigations provided
a rationale for this new finding. Furthermore, gram-scale synthesis
of representative products 3a and 4a was
realized by applying operationally simple and glovebox-free procedures,
which revealed the practical usefulness of this work. Finally, evaluation
of the quantitative green metrics provided evidence that our protocol
was superior over the literature ones in terms of green chemistry
and sustainability.