Secondary amines through reductive amination

A mixture of primary and secondary amines is formed when ammonia is not used during the nitrile reduction. It is possible to prepare high purity secondary amines by carrying the reduction out at low pressure and passing hydrogen through the reaction in a batch process (47,48),... 

The reductive alkylation of a primary amine with ketone leads to the formation of a stable imine. In the presence of hydrogen and a hydrogenation catalyst, the imine is reduced to a secondary amine. Similarly, a diamine reacts stepwise to form dialkylated secondary amines. However, several side reactions are possible for these reactions as outlined by Greenfield (12). The general scheme depicting the reaction between primary amine or diamine to yield secondary amine through a Schiff base is shown in Figure 17.1. 

Glutaraldehyde is the most popular b/s-aldchydc homobifunctional crosslinker in use today. Flowever, a glance at glutaraldehyde s structure is not indicative of the complexity of its possible reaction mechanisms. Reactions with proteins and other amine-containing molecules would be expected to proceed through the formation of Schiff bases. Subsequent reduction with sodium cyanoborohydride or another suitable reductant would yield stable secondary amine... 

Conjugation through Schiff base formation followed by reduction to secondary amine linkage. 

Thus, glycoproteins such as HRP, GO, or most antibody molecules can be activated for conjugation by brief treatment with periodate. Crosslinking with an amine-containing protein takes place under alkaline pH conditions through the formation of Schiff base intermediates. These relatively labile intermediates can be stabilized by reduction to a secondary amine linkage with sodium cyanoborohydride (Figure 20.8). 

Selectivities of about 2 1 are the best found for this type of hydrogenation and are highly dependent on the secondary amine used they seem to correlate with the nucleophilicity of the amine. Reductive amination of PhCHO with ben-zylamine can proceed through an imine intermediate, and thus gave better selectivities (12 1) but was found to be sluggish using this catalyst system. 

Thus, two major differences between the reductive alkylation of primary and secondary amines are the increased steric hindrance in the latter case, and the fact that tertiary amine formation cannot proceed through a ketimine intermediate. 

On the other hand, the production of desired compounds through reduction of starting material requires the electron donors to be oxidized (reductant). Alcohols are often used not only as a solvent but as the donor to produce useful compounds, e.g., anilines from nitrobenzenes,22) alcohols from aldehydes,23) and secondary amines from the corresponding Schiff bases.24) From the organic synthetic point of view, however, the separation of undesired products, aldehydes or ketones, from the alcohols is necessary unless subsequent reaction processes consume them25,26) or they are easily removed by distillation or other procedures. A recent report has shown that water acts as the electron donor and is converted into 02 in the photocatalytic regio-selective reduction of terpenes mixed with aqueous suspension of Ti02.27,28) It is notable that isolation of the desired product from the reaction mixture is simple in this type of photocatalytic reduction. 

An excellent, broad review of the last 60 years of hydride reductions has been published,235 and the use of selectrides, Li and K tri-.v-butylborohydridcs or trisiamylborohydrides, has also been reviewed.236 A review of sodium borohydride-carboxylic acid as a reagent with novel selectivity in reductions has been written in particular, this reagent is useful for the A -alkylation of primary and secondary amines, through a sequence that is believed to involve sequential carboxylic acid to aldehyde reduction followed by reductive animation.237... 

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