We found that phenethylcarbamates that bear ortho-salicylate as an ether group (carbamoyl salicylates) dramatically accelerate OC bond dissociation in strong acid to facilitate generation of isocyanate cation (N-protonated isocyanates), which undergo subsequent intramolecular aromatic electrophilic cyclization to give dihydroisoquinolones. To generate isocyanate cations from carbamates in acidic media as electrophiles for aromatic substitution, protonation at the ether oxygen, the least basic heteroatom, is essential to promote CO bond cleavage. However, the carbonyl oxygen of carbamates, the most basic site, is protonated exclusively in strong acids. We found that the protonation site can be shifted to an alternative basic atom by linking methyl salicylate to the ether oxygen of carbamate. The methyl ester oxygen ortho to the phenolic (ether) oxygen of salicylate is as basic as the carbamate carbonyl oxygen, and we found that monoprotonation at the methyl ester oxygen in strong acid resulted in the formation of an intramolecular cationic hydrogen bond (>CO⁺H⋅⋅⋅O<) with the phenolic ether oxygen. This facilitates OC bond dissociation of phenethylcarbamates, thereby promoting isocyanate cation formation. In contrast, superacid-mediated diprotonation at the methyl ester oxygen of the salicylate and the carbonyl oxygen of the carbamate afforded a rather stable dication, which did not readily undergo CO bond dissociation. This is an unprecedented and unknown case in which the monocation has greater reactivity than the dication.

Carbamates have been used as precursors of isocyanates, but heating in the presence of strong acids is required because cleavage of the CO bond in carbamates is energy-demanding even in acid media. Direct amidation of aromatic compounds by isocyanate cations generated at room temperature from carbamoyl salicylates in trifluoromethanesulfonic acid (TfOH) was examined. Carbamates with ortho-salicylate as an ether group (carbamoyl salicylates) showed dramatically accelerated OC bond dissociation in TfOH, which resulted in facile generation of the isocyanate cation. These chemoselective intermolecular aromatic amidation reactions proceeded even at room temperature and showed good compatibility with other electrophilic functionalities and high discrimination between N-monosubstituted carbamate and N,N-disubstituted carbamate. The reaction rates of secondary and tertiary amide formation were markedly different, and this difference was utilized to achieve successive (tandem) amidation reactions of molecules with an N-monosubstituted carbamate and an N,N-disubstituted carbamate with two kinds of aromatic compounds.

Although many organic/inorganic compounds that release nitric oxide (NO) upon photoirradiation (phototriggered caged-NOs) have been reported, their photoabsorption wavelengths mostly lie in the UV region, because XNO bonds (X=heteroatom and metal) generally have rather strong π-bond character. Thus, it is intrinsically difficult to generate organic compounds that release NO under visible light irradiation. Herein, the structures and properties of N-pyramidal nitrosamine derivatives of 7-azabicyclo[2.2.1]heptanes that release NO under visible light irradiation are described. Bathochromic shifts of the absorptions of these nitrosamines, attributed to HOMO (n)–LUMO (π*) transitions associated with the nonplanar structure of the NNO moiety, enable the molecules to absorb visible light, which results in NNO bond cleavage. Thus, these compounds are innate organic caged-NOs that are uncaged by visible light.