Carbamoyl chlorides is an essential building block that serve as a precursor for agrochemical and pharmaceutical compounds. The application of phosgene, a simple and traditional phosgenation reagent for construction of carbamoyl chlorides, is avoided for the synthesis of these fine chemicals because of the restrictions placed on its application due to its high toxicity.
In this study, Takao, Moriguchi, and Asahara’s group has reported the visible-light-induced in situ preparation of phosgene through the oxygenation of chloroform in the presence of chlorine dioxide, which leads to the safe constructions of carbamoyl chlorides with good-to-high yields and wide substrate scopes. In addition, this method can also be applied to the synthesis of various carbonates.

This result was published in the RSC journal ‘‘Chemical Communications’’ on April 21, 2022 (published online) and accepted as Front Cover.

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI (JP20K05606 to H. A., JP20H02779 and JP20H04819 to K. O.); the NEDO 17101509-0 to H. A.; and the JST OPERA JPMJOP1861 to T. I.

Journal：Chemical Communications
Title：Visible-light-Induced phosgenation of amines by chloroform oxygenation using chlorine dioxide
Author：Haruyasu Asahara, Nozomi Takao, Maiko Moriguchi, Tsuyoshi Inoue and Kei Ohkubo