Self-regulated catalysis for the selective synthesis of primary amines from carbonyl compounds

Abstract

Most current processes for the general synthesis of primary amines by reductive amination are performed with enormously excessive amounts of hazardous ammonia. It remains unclear how catalysts should be designed to regulate amination reaction dynamics at a low ammonia-to-substrate ratio for the quantitative synthesis of primary amines from the corresponding carbonyl compounds. Herein we show a facile control of the reaction selectivity in the layered boron nitride supported ruthenium catalyzed reductive amination reaction. Specifically, locating ruthenium to the edge surface of layered boron nitride leads to an increased hydrogenation activity owing to the enhanced interfacial electronic effects between ruthenium and the edge surface of boron nitride. This enables self-accelerated reductive amination reactions which quantitatively synthesize structurally diverse primary amines by reductive amination of carbonyl compounds with twofold ammonia.