A catalyst-free, waste-less ethanol-based solvothermal synthesis of amides

A green, one-pot approach based on the solvothermal amidation of carboxylic acids with amines has been developed for the synthesis of diverse aliphatic and aromatic amides. It does not require the use of catalysts or coupling reagents and it occurs in the presence of ethanol that has been proved to have a key role in the process. The proposed strategy is also extendable to biologically active amides and could represent a low-cost and waste-less alternative to the common synthetic pathways.