A readily available pincer ruthenium(II) complex catalyzes the selective monoalkylation of (hetero)aromatic amines with a wide range of primary alcohols (including pyridine-, furan-, and thiophene-substituted alcohols) with high efficiency when used in low catalyst loadings (1 mol %). Tertiary amine formation via polyalkylation does not occur, making this ruthenium system an excellent catalyst for the synthesis of sec-amines.
A ruthenium complex formed from commercially available [Ru(p-cymene)Cl-2](2) and 1,4-bis(diphenylphosphino)butane catalyzes the racemization of aromatic alpha-hydroxy ketones very efficiently at room temperature. The racemization is fully compatible with a kinetic resolution catalyzed by a lipase from Pseudomonas stutzeri. This is the first example of dynamic kinetic resolution of alpha-hydroxy ketones at ambient temperature in which the metal and enzyme catalysts work in concert in one pot at room temperature to give quantitative yields of esters of alpha-hydroxy ketones with very high enantioselectivity.
Allylic alcohols are isomerized into enolates (enols) by [Cp*IrCl2]2. The enolates react with Selectfluor present in the reaction media. This method produces α-fluoro ketones as single constitutional isomers in high yields.
A ruthenium trichloride complex has been loaded into an aluminium metalorganic framework (MOF), MOF-253, by post-synthetic modification to give MOF-253-Ru. MOF-253 contains open bipyridine sites that are available to bind with the ruthenium complex. MOF-253-Ru was characterised by elemental analysis, N2 sorption and X-ray powder diffraction. This is the first time that a Ru complex has been coordinated to a MOF through post-synthetic modification and used as a heterogeneous catalyst. MOF-253-Ru catalysed the oxidation of primary and secondary alcohols, including allylic alcohols, with PhI(OAc)2 as the oxidant under very mild reaction conditions (ambient temperature to 40 degrees C). High conversions (up to >99%) were achieved in short reaction times (13 h) by using low catalyst loadings (0.5 mol% Ru). In addition, high selectivities (>90%) for aldehydes were obtained at room temperature. MOF-253-Ru can be recycled up to six times with only a moderate decrease in substrate conversion.
Primary carbohydrate amines at primary and secondary carbons are alkylated by alcohols in the presence of [Cp*IrCl2]2. When primary carbohydrate alcohols are used as the coupling partners and in the presence of Cs2CO3, amine-linked pseudodisaccharides are obtained. Secondary carbohydrate alcohols are unaffected under these conditions, which allows regioselective reactions.