Acetonitrile and benzonitrile as versatile amino sources in copper-catalyzed mild electrochemical C–H amidation reactions

A mild, efficient electrochemical approach to the site-selective direct C-H amidation of benzene and its derivatives with acetonitrile and benzonitrile has been developed. It has been shown that joint electrochemical oxidation of various arenes in the presence of a copper salt as a catalyst and nitriles leads to the formation of N-phenylacetamide from benzene and N-benzylacetamides from benzyl derivatives (up to 78% yield). A favorable feature of the process is mild conditions (room temperature, ambient pressure, no strong oxidants) that meet the criteria of green chemistry.