Highly efficient one-pot amination of carboxylate-substituted nitrogen-containing heteroaryl chlorides via Staudinger reaction

An efficient one-pot method for the synthesis of tert-butyl 6-aminonicotinate (5) is described. The key transformation involves displacement of the chloro group in tert-butyl 6-chloronicotinate (2) with azide followed by a Staudinger reaction. The scope of this methodology is further extended for the synthesis of a series of carboxylate-substituted heteroaryl amines. In particular, we synthesized tert-butyl carboxylate-substituted amino-pyridine, -pyridazine, and -pyrazine. In addition to one-pot conversion, short reaction time, simplicity of operation, ease of purification, and good yields are the key advantages of this methodology. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.