Novel synthetic methods for N-cyano-1H-imidazole-4-carboxamides and their fungicidal activity

A novel synthetic method of N-cyanocarboxamides has been developed with advantages of mild reaction condition, simpler procedure and easy reactant-product isolation compared with the existing methods. Using this novel method, 16 new N-cyano-1H-imidazole-4-carboxamide derivatives were synthesized and their structures were characterized by spectrum analysis. Further antifungal activity study showed that most of the newly synthesized compounds have good antifungal activity selectively against Rhizoctonia solani among the six fungi tested. Particularly, compound 12h was identified as the most promising candidate with an EC(50) of 2.63 μg/mL against R. solani.