Benzamide hydrolysis in strong acids — The last word

Recently it has become apparent that the mechanism of amide hydrolysis in relatively dilute strong acid media is the same as the one observed for ester and benzimidate hydrolysis, two water molecules reacting with the O-protonated amide in the rate-determining step. This is not the whole story, however, at least for benzamide, N-methylbenzamide, and N,N-dimethylbenzamide, since the observed rate constants for these substrates deviate upwards from the observed excess acidity correlation lines at acidities higher than about 60% H2SO4, meaning that another, faster, reaction with a different mechanism is taking over at higher acidities. It has never been clear what this latter mechanism was until the work reported in this paper. An exhaustive excess acidity analysis of all the available measured reaction rate constants for the three substrates in three different acidic media, aqueous H2SO4, aqueous HClO4, and aqueous HCl, shows that this second mechanism involves a second rate-determining proton transfer to the O-protonated benzamide, followed by (or possibly concerted with) irreversible loss of +NH4 to give an acylium ion. Subsequent reaction of this with water (or bisulfate, etc.) eventually gives the observed carboxylic acid product. This latter reaction mechanism has never been previously considered for amide hydrolysis, but it may not be uncommon; at least one other reaction with a similar mechanism is known, and another possible case is suggested.Key words: amides, benzamides, hydrolysis, excess acidity, mechanism, acid media.