Communications
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201100878
Iron Catalysis
Cooperative Transition-Metal and Chiral Brønsted Acid Catalysis:
Enantioselective Hydrogenation of Imines To Form Amines**
Shaolin Zhou, Steffen Fleischer, Kathrin Junge, and Matthias Beller*
Chiral amines are an integral part of numerous important
bioactive compounds. This privileged structural motif is found
in naturally occurring alkaloids and amino acid derivatives as
well as in pharmaceuticals, herbicides, and insecticides.[1]
Typically, enantiomerically pure amines are key building
blocks in the drug-discovery process, but they are also sold on
a multi-hundred-ton-scale as kinetic-resolution reagents.[2]
With the growing importance of chiral compounds in the
life-science industries, the development of efficient method-
ologies continues to be a topic of interest in organic chemistry
and catalysis. Clearly, asymmetric hydrogenation has become
a prime technology for the synthesis of chiral compounds.[3–12]
In this respect, the atom-efficient reaction of imines with
inexpensive hydrogen to form amines has received much
attention in recent years. The largest metal-catalyzed asym-
metric process in industry today, the iridium-catalyzed hydro-
genation in the production of metolachlor,[3d] is a prime
example of this methodology. Virtually all of the known
catalyst systems employed for asymmetric hydrogenation are
derived from precious late transition metals in combination
with specific chiral phosphine ligands for the control of
enantioselectivity.
Herein, we describe a different approach involving the
combination of a molecularly defined iron hydrogenation
catalyst with a chiral Brønsted acid for the reduction of
various imines with hydrogen to form the corresponding
amines with high selectivity (Scheme 1).[15] Conceptually, the
Scheme 1. Cooperative hydrogenation of imines with an iron/Brønsted
acid catalyst system.
Brønsted acid catalyst and the organometallic center work
together in a cooperative manner, in analogy with catalysis by
iron-based hydrogenases.[16] Notably, the levels of enantiose-
lectivity observed with a simple iron catalyst rival those of the
most efficient precious-metal-based systems.
To date, no catalytic hydrogenation of imines in the
presence of nonchiral metal complexes has been reported to
give the corresponding amines with high enantioselectivity.[12-
n,o,w] Potential problems with the envisioned reaction were the
possible inadequate reactivity of the two components of the
catalytic system: the organometallic complex and the
Brønsted acid. The latter has to specifically activate the
original substrate, whereas the former has to react with the
activated intermediate. Furthermore, nonspecific deactiva-
tion reactions between the two components might compro-
mise the desired overall process.
Owing to the industrial importance of 1-aryl ethylamines,
our initial catalytic investigations were carried out on the
hydrogenation of N-(1-phenylethylidene)aniline (2a) as a
benchmark reaction (Table 1). According to our concept, we
intended to use commercially available chiral 3,3’-bisaryl 1,1’-
binaphthyl-2,2’-diyl hydrogen phosphates 1 for the induction
of stereoselectivity.
An interesting alternative organocatalytic approach for
the reduction of imines in the presence of chiral Brønsted
acids was reported by the research groups of Rueping,[13a–c]
List,[13d–g] MacMillan,[13h] and Antilla.[13i] Unfortunately, the
requirement of stoichiometric amounts of expensive
Hantzsch dihydropyridines as the hydrogen source has
limited the application of this methodology. Over the past
decade, the field of asymmetric Brønsted acid catalysis has
grown at a dramatic pace. This form of catalysis provides new
ways for the enantioselective preparation of various kinds of
C C, C O, and C N bonds.[14] However, the majority of these
methods are restricted to the generation of a stabilized
carbocation and its direct reaction with active carbon- or
heteroatom-based nucleophiles.
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[*] S. Zhou,[+] S. Fleischer,[+] Dr. K. Junge, Prof. Dr. M. Beller
Leibniz-Institut fꢀr Katalyse an der Universitꢁt Rostock
Albert-Einstein-Strasse 29a, 18059 Rostock (Germany)
Fax: (+49)381-1281-51113
E-mail: matthias.beller@catalysis.de
Well-known homogeneous and heterogeneous hydroge-
nation catalysts were added to the reaction mixture to
promote the desired catalytic reduction with hydrogen.
Selected results are shown in Table 1. First experiments
revealed that the desired N-(1-phenylethyl)aniline was
formed in the presence of various Ru, Rh, Ir, and Pd catalysts
(Table 1, entries 2–7). However, none of these established
precious-metal hydrogenation catalysts in combination with
chiral Brønsted acids, for example, 3,3’-bis(2,4,6-triisopropyl-
[+] These authors contributed equally to this work.
[**] This research has been funded by the State of Mecklenburg-Western
Pomerania, the BMBF, and the DFG (Leibniz Prize). We thank Dr. W.
Baumann, Dr. C. Fischer, S. Buchholz, S. Schareina, A. Kammer, A.
Koch, and S. Rossmeisl (all at the LIKAT) for their excellent technical
and analytical support.
Supporting information for this article is available on the WWW
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ꢀ 2011 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2011, 50, 5120 –5124