Efficient, Solvent-Free Aminolysis of Monoesters Catalyzed by Sodium

An efficient, solvent-free procedure using sodium as catalyst for the aminolysis of monoesters is reported.A detailed comparison of catalysts between sodium and sodium amide was made.It was found that the fresh sodium amide by in-situ synthesis of sodium with ammonia was more active than the indirectly adding sodium amide.As compared to the previously reported approaches, the procedure given in this work is much faster and performed under mild conditions.Furthermore, this procedure is applied successfully for the aminolysis of other monoesters.