title: Cobalt-Catalyzed N-Alkylation of Amines with Alcohols.
abstract: A well-defined nonprecious metal cobalt(II) catalyst based on a pincer PNP ligand has been employed for the efficient N-alkylation of both aromatic and aliphatic amines with alcohols. A subtle change of reaction conditions (simply adding 4 Å molecular sieves) was observed to readily switch the resulting products (amines vs imines) with high chemoselectivity. A range of alcohols and amines including both aromatic and aliphatic substrates were efficiently converted to secondary amines in good-to-excellent yields when 2 mol % cobalt catalyst was used. Additional experiments indicate that a hydrogen-borrowing mechanism is responsible for the tandem acceptorless dehydrogenation/condensation/hydrogenation process.
authors.affiliation: Department of Sciences, John Jay College and Ph.D. Program in Chemistry, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York , New York, New York 10019, United States.
authors.forename: Guoqi
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Sciences, John Jay College and Ph.D. Program in Chemistry, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York , New York, New York 10019, United States.|Department of Chemistry, Hunter College, The City University of New York , New York, New York 10065, United States.
authors.forename: Zhiwei
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Hunter College, The City University of New York , New York, New York 10065, United States.
authors.forename: Shengping
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zheng