Too Short-Lived or Not Existing Species: N-Azidoamines Reinvestigated

Treatment of N-chlorodimethylamine with sodium azide in dichloromethane does not lead to N-azidodimethylamine, as thought for more than 50 years. Instead, surprisingly, (azidomethyl)dimethylamine is generated with good reproducibility. A plausible reaction mechanism to explain the formation of this product is presented. The reaction of lithium dibenzylhydrazide with tosyl azide does not result in the creation of an N-azidoamine, which can be detected by IR spectroscopy at ambient temperature, as it was claimed previously. Additional experiments with diazo group transfer to lithium hydrazides show that intermediate N-azidoamines are very short-lived or their formation is bypassed by direct generation of 1,1-diazenes via synchronous cleavage of two N-N bonds.