Copper-catalyzed aerobic oxidative C-C bond cleavage of simple ketones for the synthesis of amides.

A Cu-catalyzed oxidative amidation of simple ketones with amines via carbon-carbon (C-C) bond cleavage has been developed. A number of aryl and alkyl ketones could be easily converted to amides using cheap copper salt as the catalyst and O2 as the oxidant with a wide range of amines, including primary and secondary amines. This method shows a notable advantage of the broad scope for the substrate, thus providing a practical approach to amides. A plausible mechanism is proposed based on the preliminary experiments.