Study of N-benzoyl-activation in the HgCl2-promoted guanylation reaction of thioureas.: Synthesis and structural analysis of N-benzoyl-guanidines

In this work, it is demonstrated that the benzoyl group is an activating group for thioureas in the HgCl2-guanylation reaction. Thus N-benzoyl-thioureas containing electronically neutral and even electron-withdrawing or electron-releasing substituents are converted into guanidines with reasonable yields. In addition, NMR and X-ray structural analyses were performed to understand the intra- and intermolecular features of the synthesized guanidines. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.