Efficient Ruthenium(II)-Catalyzed Direct Reductive Amination of Aldehydes under Mild Conditions Using Hydrosilane as the Reductant

Abstract A direct reductive amination of aldehydes with anilines is performed with a ruthenium(II)-(arene) catalyst. The [RuCl 2 ( p -cymene)] 2 /Ph 2 SiH 2 catalytic system is very efficient for the synthesis of secondary amines and tertiary amines in good yields, and is highly chemoselective, tolerating a wide range of functional groups, such as NO 2 , CN, CO 2 Me, F, Cl, Br, OMe, Me, furyl and alkyl. We also report an interesting direductive amination of 2-ethylbutanal.