[PeptidePaulie]

Hey Chemists!!!  I am having trouble working up the reactions I am performing right now.  Specifically, I am trying to perform microwave-assisted preparation of amides from carboxylic acids and amines (and diamines).  The reaction goes, and upon analysis, the product is in complex with a water molecule, which is expected.  However, I cannot seem to get rid of this water by any means (including washing, drying, rotovap, lyophilization, etc).  The same is true if I use an acetate instead of a carboxylic acid with an amine, except that there is a methanol cluster.  I’ve tried everything, but cannot seem to remove these adducts.  This is really hampering my workup, as the products are so polar, they go right into the aqueous layer and I am unable to isolate them.  Thanks for any insight.  I look forward to your response.
-P 

[cth]

If your product is soluble in toluene, you could try to use a Dean-Stark trap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Stark.

[stewie griffin]

So if the products are so water soluble then I assume you're not doing an extraction??
If that's the case, why can't you just concentrate down your reaction mixture and throw it as is onto a column. You'll probably want to use reverse phase since your compounds are so polar. Perhaps the complexed water will be removed by the column.

[Don Shelly]

Have you tried partitioning with a salt like magnesium sulfate?

[AC Prabakar]

Is it happening only for this compound?As you are saying that while taking acetate insted of acid also yield water with product,do you know the source of water in this case?(is it form aq.work up?)Because if the obtained product poses the ability to drink water(called as "hydrate" in polymorphism) it may be difficult to remove the water.
The simple way to find this is, estimate the amount of water present in your product and calculate the amount of water can be released from the coupling reaction.

However if you would like to remove water by workup (by using combination of solvent with water)the below paper may be helpful.(Refer Fig-4)

Organic Process Research & Development 2007, 11, 160-164