I am wondering something about transamidation with urea.
First, in eleusis's methylamine synthesis, one first step to acetamide is by reacting ethyl acetate with urea. I imagine it works like this:
EtOAc + H2N.CO.NH2 --> H2N.Ac + EtOCO.NH2
If this is the case, ethyl carbamate is formed as a byproduct? This would seem to be useful.
Second, what about the possibility of fusing NaOH with urea? Could it perhaps result in NaNH2?
NaOH + H2N.CO.NH2 --> NaNH2 + NH3 + CO2
But I guess NaOH reacts with CO2, so...dunno. Perhaps since water would be scrupulously excluded, carbonic acid could not be formed and they wouldn't react. Dunno.
Urea is good to scrub up excess NaOCl, etc, so I hear, so it can be used to quench hoffmann rearrangements, etc. True?
What else can urea be used for?