Hydroiminoacylation reaction

An interesting example is the hydroiminoacylation reaction, a good alternative to hydroacylation reactions, using aldimines as a synthetic equivalent to aldehydes (Scheme 4) [4]. The rhodium-catalyzed hydroiminoacylation of an olefin with aldimines produced a ketimine which could be further acid-hydrolyzed to give the ketone. The reaction proceeded via the formation of a stable iminoacylrhodi-um(III) hydride (this will be discussed in the mechanism section), production of which is facilitated by initial coordination of the rhodium complex to the pyridine moiety of the aldimine. This hydroiminoacylation procedure opened up the direct... 

A primary alcohol and amines can be used as an aldehyde precursor, because it can be oxidized by transfer hydrogenation. For example, the reaction of benzyl alcohol with excess olefin afforded the corresponding ketone in good yield in the presence of Rh complex and 2-amino-4-picoline [18]. Similarly, primary amines, which were transformed into imines by dehydrogenation, were also employed as a substrate instead of aldehydes [19]. Although various terminal olefins, alkynes [20], and even dienes [21] have been commonly used as a reaction partner in hydroiminoacylation reactions, internal olefins were ineffective. Recently, methyl sulfide-substituted aldehydes were successfully applied to the intermolecu-lar hydroacylation reaction [22], Also in the intramolecular hydroacylation, extension of substrates such as cyclopropane-substituted 4-enal [23], 4-alkynal [24], and 4,6-dienal [25] has been developed (Table 1). 

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