Reducing agents reductive amination

The Leuckart reaction uses formic acid as reducing agent. Reductive alkylation using formaldehyde, hydrogen, and catalyst, usually nickel, is used commercially to prepare methylated amines. These tertiary amines are used to prepare quaternary ammonium salts. 

Just as lithium and sodium can be used in low molecular weight amines for reduction of alkynes, calcium is an effective reducing agent in amine solvents. Reaction of 2-nonyne with a calcium-methylamine-ethylenediamine mixture gave 87% yield of an 86 8 4 mixture of trans-2-nonene/traMs-3-nonene/tra 5 -4-nonene, the latter two products arising by bond isomerization. 98... 

A variation of the classical reductive amination procedure uses sodium cyanoboro hydride (NaBH3CN) instead of hydrogen as the reducing agent and is better suited to amine syntheses m which only a few grams of material are needed All that is required IS to add sodium cyanoborohydride to an alcohol solution of the carbonyl compound and an amine... 

Unusual reducing properties can be obtained with borohydride derivatives formed in situ. A variety of reductions have been reported, including hydrogenolysis of carbonyls and alkylation of amines with sodium borohydride in carboxyHc acids such as acetic and trifluoroacetic (38), in which the acyloxyborohydride is the reducing agent. 

Amine—borane adducts have the general formula R3N BX where R = H, alkyl, etc, and X = alkyl, H, halogen, etc. These compounds, characterized by a coordinate covalent bond between boron and nitrogen, form a class of reducing agents having a broad spectmm of reduction potentials (5). 

Iodine azide, on the other hand, forms pure adducts with A -, A - and A -steroids by a mechanism analogous to that proposed for iodine isocyanate additions. Reduction of such adducts can lead to aziridines. However, most reducing agents effect elimination of the elements of iodine azide from the /mwj -diaxial adducts of the A - and A -olefins rather than reduction of the azide function to the iodo amine. Thus, this sequence appears to be of little value for the synthesis of A-, B- or C-ring aziridines. It is worthy to note that based on experience with nonsteroidal systems the application of electrophilic reducing agents such as diborane or lithium aluminum hydride-aluminum chloride may yet prove effective for the desired reduction. Lithium aluminum hydride accomplishes aziridine formation from the A -adducts, Le., 16 -azido-17a-iodoandrostanes (97) in a one-step reaction. The scope of this addition has been considerably enhanced by the recent... 

Reductive amination (Section 22.10) Reaction of ammonia or an amine with an aldehyde or a ketone in the presence of a reducing agent is an effective method for the preparation of primary, secondary, or tertiary amines. The reducing agent may be either hydrogen in the presence of a metal catalyst or sodium cyanoborohy-dride. R, R, and R" may be either alkyl or aryl. 

Analogous to DPNH (144-146), 1,4-dihydropyridines (147) act as reducing agents. For instance, the conversion of aromatic nitro compounds to amines (148) and reduction of enones to ketones (749) has been achieved. 

Amines can be synthesized in a single step by treatment of an aldehyde or ketone with ammonia or an amine in the presence of a reducing agent, a process called reductive amination. For example, amphetamine, a central nervous system stimulant, is prepared commercially by reductive amination of phenyl-2-propanone with ammonia, using hydrogen gas over a nickel catalyst as the reducing agent. 

Yet a third method for the synthesis of a-amino acids is by reductive amination of an a-keto acid with ammonia and a reducing agent. Alanine, for instance, is prepared by treatment of pyruvic acid with ammonia in the presence of NaBH As described in Section 24.6, the reaction proceeds through formation of an intermediate imine that is then reduced. 

Reductive animation (Sections 24.6, 26.3) A method for preparing an amine by reaction of an aldehyde or ketone with ammonia and a reducing agent. 

One of the most important derivatives of benzene is nitrobenzene. The nitro group is —NOi. Nitrobenzene is important chiefly because it is readily converted into an aromatic amine, aniline, by reduction. One preparative procedure uses zinc as the reducing agent ... 

The mechanisms of these reductions have been very little studied, though it is usually presumed that, at least with some reducing agents, nitroso compounds and hydroxylamines are intermediates. Both of these types of compounds give amines when exposed to most of these reducing agents (19-43), and hydroxylamines can be... 

Rather than preforming the a-amino ketimines to be reduced, it is often advantageous to form in situ the more reactive iminium ions from a-aminoketones and primary amines or ammonium salts in the presence of the reducing agent, e.g., sodium cyanoborohydride. Use of this procedure (reductive amination) with the enantiopure a-aminoketone 214 and benzylamine allowed the preparation of the syn diamines 215 with high yields and (almost) complete diastereoselectivities [100] (Scheme 32). Then, the primary diamines 216 were obtained by routine N-debenzylation. Similarly, the diamine 217 was prepared using ammonium acetate. In... 

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