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A highly efficient polymer supported palladium-N-heterocyclic carbene (PS-Pd-NHC) catalytic system has been developed for direct reductive amination (DRA) of carbonyl compounds with primary/secondary amines in aqueous reaction medium. This new catalytic system represents a heterogeneous, recyclable and environmentally benign protocol. The developed methodology describes a simple one step approach for the synthesis of a wide variety of substituted amines exhibiting remarkable activity with excellent yield of a desired product. Furthermore, the catalyst was effectively recycled for six consecutive cycles without any significant loss in its catalytic activity.

Optically pure alcohols are abundant in nature and attractive as feedstock for organic synthesis but challenging for further transformation using atom efficient and sustainable methodologies, particularly when there is a desire to conserve the chirality. Usually, substitution of the OH group of stereogenic alcohols with conservation of chirality requires derivatization as part of a complex, stoichiometric procedure. We herein demonstrate that a simple, inexpensive, and environmentally benign iron(III) catalyst promotes the direct intramolecular substitution of enantiomerically enriched secondary and tertiary alcohols with O -, N -, and S -centered nucleophiles to generate valuable 5-membered, 6-membered and aryl-fused 6-membered heterocyclic compounds with chirality transfer and water as the only byproduct. The power of the methodology is demonstrated in the total synthesis of (+)-lentiginosine from D-glucose where iron-catalysis is used in a key step. Adoption of this methodology will contribute towards the transition to sustainable and bio-based processes in the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries.

This discovery illustrates selective meta C-H bond activation from multiple non-equivalent C-H bonds present in medicinally relevant arylethanesulfonic acid and the 2-arylpropanoic acid moiety using weakly coordinating nitrile as a directing group. Transformation of the meta olefinated compounds to important organic molecules has been demonstrated. Efforts were made to obtain mechanistic detail of the meta C-H bond functionalization reaction.

Tremendous progress has been made towards ortho-selective C-H functionalization in the last three decades. However, the activation of distal C-H bonds and their functionalization has remained fairly underdeveloped. Herein, we report sequential meta-C-H functionalization by performing selective mono-olefination and bis-olefination with late stage modification of the C-Si as well as Si-O bonds. Temporary silyl connection was found to be advantageous due to its easy installation, easy removal and wide synthetic diversification.

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Gold(I)-chloride-catalyzed synthesis of α-sulfenylated carbonyl compounds from propargylic alcohols and aryl thiols showed a wide substrate scope with respect to both propargylic alcohols and aryl thiols. Primary and secondary aromatic propargylic alcohols generated α-sulfenylated aldehydes and ketones in 60–97 % yield. Secondary aliphatic propargylic alcohols generated α-sulfenylated ketones in yields of 47–71 %. Different gold sources and ligand effects were studied, and it was shown that gold(I) chloride gave the highest product yields. Experimental and theoretical studies demonstrated that the reaction proceeds in two separate steps. A sulfenylated allylic alcohol, generated by initial regioselective attack of the aryl thiol on the triple bond of the propargylic alcohol, was isolated, evaluated, and found to be an intermediate in the reaction. Deuterium labeling experiments showed that the protons from the propargylic alcohol and aryl thiol were transferred to the 3-position, and that the hydride from the alcohol was transferred to the 2-position of the product. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations showed that the observed regioselectivity of the aryl thiol attack towards the 2-position of propargylic alcohol was determined by a low-energy, five-membered cyclic protodeauration transition state instead of the strained, four-membered cyclic transition state found for attack at the 3-position. Experimental data and DFT calculations supported that the second step of the reaction is initiated by protonation of the double bond of the sulfenylated allylic alcohol with a proton donor coordinated to gold(I) chloride. This in turn allows for a 1,2-hydride shift, generating the final product of the reaction.

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