Recent Advances in Diversity-Oriented Synthesis of N-containing OrganicMolecules Through Carbodiimide-based Reactions

Carbodiimides (R-N=C=N-R) are well-known intermediates for the preparation of a variety of N-containing compounds, including heterocycles and amide linkages. Because of their high reactivity and easy availability, carbodiimides have been broadly used as building blocks in the synthesis of structurally complex and diverse heterocyclic compounds in multi-component reactions (MCRs). Recent advances in diversity-oriented synthesis with carbodiimide-based MCRs are discussed in this minireview and are classified into different sections based on the key transformation involved in the reactions, such as heteroannulation and nucleophilic addition reactions which containing metal-catalyzed reactions, multi-component reactions, and catalyst-free reactions subsections.