Study On Hydrogen Reaction Of Alcohols And Amines With Amines And Amines In Single Catalyst System

The development of methods for the synthesis of amines is of great importance because of the wide presence of amine moieties in natural products, pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals. Classical methods for the preparation of amines needed to add hydrogen source and alkylating agents. A recent development for the synthesis of amines is the use of "borrowing hydrogen" strategy.The conception of "borrowing hydrogen" was proposed in 2006 by Jonathan. M. Williams. "Borrowing hydrogen" reactions could be used for the synthesis of amines without added reductant, with alcohols or amines as alkylating reagents.The first section of the thesis summarizes recent development on alkylation of amines with alcohols, cross coupling of amines and N-alkylation of nitro compounds.In Chapter 2, an efficient catalytic system for the alkylation of amines with either alcohols or amines under mild conditions was developed, using cyclometallated iridium complexes as catalysts. The method has broad substrate scope, allowing for the synthesis of a diverse range of secondary and tertiary amines with good to excellent yields. By controlling the ratio of substrates, both mono- and di-alkylated amines could be obtained with high selectivity. In particular, methanol could be used as alkylating reagent, affording N-methylated products selectively. The cross coupling of amines was achieved under the mildest conditions. Meanwhile, we have proposed the available mechanism, a strong solvent effect was observed for the reaction.The catalyst is easy to access and the reaction is operationally simple. The method developed in this thesis provides a rapid, efficient and green new method for the synthesis of amines.