We herein report the use of phenyl trimethylammonium iodide (PhMe3NI) as a safe, nontoxic, and easy-to-handle reagent for an absolutely monoselective N-methylation of amides and related compounds as well as… Click to show full abstract
We herein report the use of phenyl trimethylammonium iodide (PhMe3NI) as a safe, nontoxic, and easy-to-handle reagent for an absolutely monoselective N-methylation of amides and related compounds as well as for the N-methylation of indoles. In addition, we expanded the method to N-ethylation using PhEt3NI. The ease of operational setup, high yields of ≤99%, high functional group tolerance, and especially the excellent monoselectivity for amides make this method attractive for late-stage methylation of bioactive compounds.
               
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