N,N-Dimethylformamide (DMF) is the commonly employed solvent for chemical reactions. DMF is a useful solvent employed for the isolation of chlorophyll from plant tissues.[1] It is widely employed reagent in organic synthesis. It plays multiple roles in various reactions such as solvent, dehydrating agent, reducing agent as well as catalyst. It is a multipurpose building block for the synthesis of compounds containing O, -CO, -NMe₂, -CONMe₂, -Me, -CHO as functional groups.[2]

N,N-Dimethylformamide is a polar solvent commonly used in organic synthesis. It also acts as a multipurpose precursor for formylation, amination, aminocarbonylation, amidation and cyanation reactions.[2]

N,N-Dimethylformamide (anhydrous) has been used as solvent for the synthesis of cytotoxic luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LH-RH) conjugate AN-152 (a chemotherapeutic drug) and fluorophore C625 [4-(N,N-diphenylamino)-4′-(6-O-hemiglutarate)hexylsulfinyl stilbene].[3] It may be employed as solvent medium for the various organic reduction reactions.[4]

DMF has been used as a solvent in the following processes:

• Multi-step synthesis of L-azidohomoalanine (L-Aha) during the substitution of the mesylate by sodium azide.[5]
• Synthesis of phosphine-FLAG^®, a detection reagent for metabolic labeling of glycans.[6]
• Synthesis of per-O-acetylated 6-azidofucose, a per-O-acetylated azido sugar.[6]

Solvent for many hydrophobic organic compounds.

FLAG is a registered trademark of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany