Ru(II)-Triphos Catalyzed Amination of Alcohols with Ammonia via Ionic Species

An active and selective system for the amination of primary alcohols to primary amines with ammonia based on ruthenium and triphos as the tridentate phosphine ligand was developed. On the basis of detailed mechanistic studies, we propose that the active catalyst is, unlike the previously reported systems on this reaction, a cationic ruthenium complex. The experimental findings are supported by detailed density functional theory (DFT) calculations on the catalytic cycle. Because of the cationic nature of the active catalyst, strong anion and solvent effects were observed in the catalytic amination reaction when using the ruthenium triphos complexes. Therefore, a higher activity could be achieved when the nonpolar solvent toluene is used in this amination instead of tetrahydrofuran. Our findings can help to develop and optimize the system systematically for an application to relevant target molecules.