Green, versatile, and scale-up synthesis of amides by aerobic oxidative amination over Ag2O/P-C3N4 photocatalyst

•An atom & step economical method for photocatalytic synthesis of amides was developed.•It is conducted under mild conditions using air as the oxidant & can be scaled up.•It is superior to the known methods for functionlized amides especially for drug manufacture.•The Ag2O/P-C3N4 photocatalyst is reusable and imines as by products can be prevented.•Interesting mechanism based on the strong adsorption of the sodium hemiamine was proposed.