The catalytic alkylation of amines with alcohols is a highly atom-economical approach that produces water as the sole by-product. Existing catalytic systems lack generality and are primarily applicable to electron-poor amines or to non-oxidizable amines, such as anilines. The outstanding effectiveness of an Ir-NHC catalyst in forming C−N bonds from alcohols and amines, both aliphatic and aromatic, is presented here. The catalyst performs remarkably under mild conditions, even at room temperature, attaining complete selectivity in all tested cases toward monoalkylation, even for challenging aliphatic amines, and under base-free conditions. Thorough mechanistic investigation to understand the outstanding activity and selectivity, combining experimental, theoretical, and both in situ and ex situ X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) studies, are presented.

Unnatural amino acids are valuable building blocks with numerous applications. Here, we present a quantitative technique for accessing mono-N-functionalized amino acids directly from unprotected substrates using alcohols as alkylating agents and an NHC-Ir(III) catalyst. We detail specific steps for catalyst preparation and application, as well as for catalyst recycling. The protocol excludes a few amino acids (l-cysteine, l-lysine, and l-arginine) and secondary alcohols.

A new Ir(III)-NHC catalyst is reported that shows remarkable activity in the N-alkylation of unprotected amino acids. The catalytic system gives excellent selectivity toward monoalkylated α-amino acids and a high degree of retention of stereochemistry. A wide range of unprotected nonnatural amino acids have been prepared. These compounds represent an array of building blocks that could be used for the direct synthesis of peptidomimetics. The synthesis of amino-acid-based surfactants is also reported. This catalytic method gives the amino acid products in quantitative yield; hence, tedious purifications by derivatization are therefore avoided. Furthermore, although the catalyst is a homogeneous metal complex, it can be recycled and reused for several runs. This also contributes to the efficiency and sustainability of the method.