Acridine photocatalysis enables tricomponent direct decarboxylative amine construction

Amines are centrally important motifs in medicinal chemistry and biochemistry, and indispensable intermediates and linchpins in organic synthesis. Despite their cross-disciplinary prominence, synthetic access to amine continues to rely on two-electron approaches based on reductions and additions of organometallic reagents, limiting their accessible chemical space and necessitating stepwise preassembly of synthetic precursors. We report herein a homogeneous photocatalytic tricomponent decarboxylative radical-mediated amine construction that enables modular access to α-branched secondary amines directly from the broad and structurally diverse chemical space of carboxylic acids in a tricomponent reaction with aldehydes and aromatic amines. Our studies reveal the key role of acridine photocatalysis acting in concert with copper and Brønsted acid catalytic processes in facilitating the previously inaccessible homogeneous photocatalytic reaction and provide a streamlined segue to a wide range of amines and nonproteinogenic α-amino acids. Diverse amines and amino acids are now readily accessed from carboxylic acids, aldehydes, and amine precursors in a direct decarboxylative reaction enabled by a homogeneous triple catalytic system based on acridine photocatalysis.