Imidazolidine reductive amination

The current work indicates that sulfided platinum catalysts are, in general, more active and selective than Pt, Pd, or sulfided Pd catalysts for reductive alkylation of primary amines with ketones. The choice of the catalyst preparation parameters, especially the support, plays a major role in determining the performance of the catalyst. Diamines, especially of lower molecular weight, tend to react with ketones even at room temperature to form heterocycles such as imidazolidine, diazepanes, and pyrimidines. Hence, a continuous reactor configuration that minimizes the contact between the amine and the ketone, along with a highly active catalyst is desired to obtain the dialkylated product. In general, sulfided Pt appears to be more suited for the reductive alkylation of ethylenediamine while unsulfided Pd or Pt may also be used if 1,3-diaminopropane is the amine. 

This strategy was further developed so as to prepare the quinolizidine polyol 155 (315), by separating the racemic furoisoxazoline acetals (21,82,293,294) derived from the imidazolidine derivatives, which in turn, were obtained from (15, 25)-diphenylethylenediamine (316) (see Scheme 6.78). Aminal hydrolysis led to aldehyde 153, and this was followed by aldehyde reduction and catalytic hydrogenation (221,313) to give (-l-)-deoxynojirimycin (natural). Its enantiomer was... 

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