Imines reduction with complex metal hydrides

Imine formation is an important reaction. It generates a C-N bond, and it is probably the most common way of forming heterocyclic rings containing nitrogen (see Section 11.10). Thns, cycliza-tion of 5-aminopentanal to A -piperideine is merely intramolecular imine formation. A further property of imines that is shared with carbonyl groups is their susceptibility to reduction via complex metal hydrides (see Section 7.5). This allows imines to be... 

Asymmetric reductions with chiral complex metal hydrides and tricoordinate hydride reagents are rare. Iminium salts25 26 and imines27 have been reduced by chiral complex aluminum hydrides. Optically active 2-substituted Ar-methylpiperidine was obtained by reduction of the corresponding 3,4,5,6-tetrahydropyridinium perchlorate with (—)-menthol lithium aluminum hydride. The optical purity for the -propyl derivative was 12% in favor of the S configuration. Similar reductions of imines prepared from acetophenone and propiophenonc with (-)-mcn-thol-lithium aluminum hydride and ( + )-borneol-lithium aluminum hydride reagents resulted in low (<10%) optical yields in those examples where optical yields could be calculated. 

The key intennediate of the reaction is an imine hydride complex 1, which is derived from the oxidative addition of low-valent palladium into the N—H bond and subsequent /3-palladium hydride elimination (Scheme 5). Nucleophilic addition of a second molecule of amine to 1 gives 8, and intramolecular reductive cleavage of 8 with the metal hydride gives amines. 

Silanes are widely recognized as efficient reagents for reduction of carbonyl and heterocarbonyl functionality. In the case of alkyl and arylsilanes, the reaction requires catalysis by Lewis acids or transition metal complexes 1, 3] however, with more Lewis acidic trichloro or trialkoxysilanes, an altemative metal free activation can be accomplished. Thus, it has been demonstrated that extracoordinate silicon hydrides, formed by the coordination of silanes to Lewis bases, such as tertiary amines 7a], DMF [7b] or MeCN, and so on [7], can serve as mild reagents for the reduction of imines to amines [8]. In the case of trichlorosilane, an inexpensive and relatively easy to handle reducing reagent, and DMF as a Lewis basic promoter, the intermediacy of hexacoordinate species has been confirmed by Si NMR spectro scopy [7b]. 

By analogy to the metal-ion-catalyzed reaction of pyridoxal derivatives with nucleophiles, e.g., imine formation (24), it is highly hkely that the reduction proceeds via the 3-hydroxypyridine-4-carboxaldehyde-metal ion complex. Coordination of the carbonyl oxygen both in the ground state and in the transition state is envisaged to facilitate hydride transfer by decreasing the electron density on the carbonyl carbon. 

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