• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.35 no.9
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• pp.2673-2678
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• 2014

The detailed mechanisms of the efficient $\small{L}$-proline and pyrrolidine catalyzed transamidation of acetamide with benzylamine have been investigated using density functional theory (DFT) calculations. Our calculated results show: (1) the mechanisms of two catalytic cycle reactions are similar. However, the rate-determining steps of their reactions are different for the whole catalytic process. One is the intramolecular nucleophilic addition reaction of 1-COM, the other is hydrolysis reaction of 2-C. (2) COOH group of $\small{L}$-proline is essential for efficient transamidation. The computational results are in good agreement with the experiment finding and mechanism resported by Rao et al. for $\small{L}$-proline-catalyzed synthesis of amidesin good to excellent yields.