Why can't tertiary amines form amides with carboxylic acids?
1 Answer
Because a tertiary amine has no hydrogen, and cannot be eliminated as an amine hydrohalide salt. And I take it you mean amide formation with carbonyl halides.
Explanation:
Typically, we form an amide from an acyl halide, and an amine, in the presence of a base (and typically, this base is a SECOND equiv of amine), e.g.
The first equiv of
We could use a tertiary amine to be the base (and in fact
If the secondary amine, the one you want to form an amide with, were expensive, or purpose synthesized, you would want to use cheap