Hydroamination actinide catalyst

Some of the most active catalysts for the hydroamination of alkynes are based on lanthanides and actinides. The turnover frequencies for the additions are higher than those for lanthanide-catalyzed additions to alkenes by one or two orders of magnitude. Thus, intermolecular addition occurs with acceptable rates. Examples of both intermolecular and intramolecular reactions have been reported (Equations 16.87 and 16.88). Tandem processes initiated by hydroamination have also been reported. As shown in Equation 16.89, intramolecular hydroamination of an alk5me, followed by cyclization with the remaining olefin, generates a pyrrolizidine skeleton. Hydroaminations of aminoalkynes have also been conducted with the metallocenes of the actinides uranium and thorium. - These hydroaminations catalyzed by lanthanide and actinide complexes occur by insertion of the alkyne into a metal-amido intermediate. 

As discussed in Chapter 9, the insertion of olefins and alk)nes into metal-amido complexes is limited to a few examples. Such insertion reactions are proposed to occur as part of the mechanism of the hydroamination of norbomene catalyzed by an iridium(I) complex and as part of the hydroamination of alkenes and alkynes catalyzed by lanthanide and actinide metal complexes. This reaction was clearly shown to occur with the iridium(I) amido complex formed by oxidative addition of aniline, and this insertion process is presented in Chapter 9. The mechanism of the most active Ir(I) catalyst system for this process involving added fluoride is imknown. 

Only a limited number of organoactinide catalysts have been investigated for the hydroamination/cyclization of aminoalkenes (Fig. 4, Table 2) [55, 96-98]. The constrained geometry catalysts 11-An (An = Th, U) show high activity comparable to the corresponding rare earth metal complexes and can be applied for a broad range of substrates [55, 96, 97]. The ferrocene-diamido uranium complex 12 was also catalytically active for aminoalkene cyclization, but at a somewhat reduced rate [98]. Mechanistic studies suggest that the actinide-catalyzed reaction occurs via a lanthanide-like metal-amido insertion mechanism and not via an imido mechanism (as proposed for alkyne hydroaminations), because also secondary aminoalkenes can be cyclized [55, 98]. 

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