Copper/N,N-dimethylglycine catalyzed goldberg reactions between aryl bromides and amides, aryl iodides and secondary acyclic amides.

An efficient and general copper-catalyzed Goldberg reaction at 90-110 °C between aryl bromides and amides providing the desired products in good to excellent yields has been developed using N,N-dimethylglycine as the ligand. The reaction is tolerant toward a wide range of amides and a variety of functional group substituted aryl bromides. In addition, hindered, unreactive aromatic and aliphatic secondary acyclic amides, known to be poor nucleophiles, are efficiently coupled with aryl iodides through this simple and cheap copper/N,N-dimethylglycine catalytic system.