Aminomalononitrile

Aminomalononitrile is the organic compound with the formula. The compound can be viewed as an amine-substituted malononitrile. It is of some interest to the study of the chemical origin of life because it represents a trimer of HCN, speculated to be a progenitor of nucleic acids. Aminomalononitrile has been prepared by reduction of the oxime: with aluminium amalgam. The compound is used in situ but can be isolated as its tosylate salt where ^-OTs is .
AMN reacts with cyanide to give diaminomaleonitrile, a tetramer of HCN:
This easy conversion has been the source of some confusion.