A facile and practical one-pot synthesis of multisubstituted 2-aminothiophenes via imidazole-catalyzed Gewald reaction

A simple and efficient procedure was developed for the synthesis of multisubstituted 2-aminothiophene derivatives. In the presence of catalytic amount of imidazole, ketones or aldehydes, dicyanomethane and elemental sulfur were converted into the corresponding 2-aminothiophene derivatives in moderate to high yields in DMF at 60 °C.