Preparation of Amines through Reductive Amination

In the previous section, we learned how to make amines via an Sn2 process. That method was best for making primary amines. In this section, we will learn a way to make secondary amines, using a two-step synthesis (where the first step is a reaction that we have already seen). When we learned about ketones and aldehydes, we saw how to make imines  

We saw that a primary amine can react with a ketone (under acidic conditions) to give an imine. Now, we will use this reaction to make amines. 

When we form an imine, we are forming the essential C-N connection that you need in order to have an amine  

the oxidation state is not correct. In order to get an amine, we need to do the following conversion  

In order to convert an imine into an amine, we will need to perform a reduction. One way to do so is to reduce the imine in much the same way that a ketone is reduced, using LAH  

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