Recent Advances in Diversity-Oriented Synthesis of N-containing Organic Molecules 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. Be-cause of their high reactivity and easy availability, carbodiimides have been broadly used as building blocks in the synthesis of structurally complex and diverse heterocyclic com-pounds in multi-component reactions (MCRs). Recent advances in diversity-oriented syn-thesis 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 re-actions, multi-component reactions, and catalyst-free reactions subsections.