Direct C–H Functionalization of Phenanthrolines: Metal- and Light-Free Dicarbamoylations

A direct method for C-H dicarbamoylations of phenanthrolines has been developed, which is capable of directly installing primary, secondary as well as tertiary amides. This is a significant improvement on the previous direct method, which was limited to primary amides. The metal-, light-, and catalyst-free Minisci-type reaction is cheap, operationally simple, and scalable. We demonstrate that the step efficiency toward dicarbamoylated phenanthroline targets can now be significantly improved.