Deammoniative Condensation of Primary Allylic Amines with Nonallylic Amines

An unprecedented deammoniative condensation reaction of primary allylic amines with nonallylic amines has been developed through C-N bond cleavage.In the presence of 5 mol%palladium diacetate,10 mol%1,4-bis(diphenylphosphino)butane(dppb),and 5 mol%p-toluenesulfonic acid(TsOH),a range of α-unbranched primary allylic amines smoothly underwent deammoniative condensation with nonallylic amines in an α-selective fashion to give structurally diverse secondary and tertiary amines in good to excellent yields and E selectivity.Replacing dppb with racemic 2,2'-bis(diphenylphosphino)-1,1'-binaphthyl(BINAP)permitted the deammoniative condensation of enantioenriched α-chiral primary allylic amines with nonallylic amines to proceed with complete retention of configuration.Electrospray ionization(ESI)mass spectrometric analysis of the reaction mixture permitted the identification of some π-allylpalladium intermediates,and plausible mechanisms have been proposed to account for the regioselectivity and stereospecificity of the deammoniative condensation reaction.