A synthetic method for dehydrative N-benzylation promoted by water molecules in heptane using a π-benzylpalladium system has been developed. The presence of water significantly accelerates carbon-nitrogen bond formation, which is accomplished in an atom-economical process to afford the corresponding N-monobenzylated products. A crossover experiment afforded H/D scrambled products, which is consistent
Dehydrative amination of benzhydrols with electron-withdrawing group-substituted 2-aminopyridines utilizing Au(<scp>iii</scp>)/TPPMS catalyst system in water
using 2-aminopyridines with poor nucleophilic character in water. Various functional groups such as electron-withdrawing nitro, cyano and halogen groups were tolerated well to form the desired N-benzylated 2-aminopyridine compounds. On the basis of mechanistic studies including kinetic profiles, Hammett study and isotope effects, we propose a pathway in which a Lewis acidic gold cation species activates