AbstractWe report the the copper(II) acetoacetonate [Cu(acac)2]/BINAP‐catalyzed synthesis of arylamines from N‐tosylhydrazones and anilines. A fine tuning of the reaction conditions was required to accomplish the cross‐coupling successfully, including the ligands effect and the addition of small amounts of water. The characteristic feature of this protocol is its functional group compatibility and its chemoselectivity when various aminophenol derivatives were used. Taking into consideration the interest for this copper‐reductive coupling in which no stoichiometric metal hydride reagent is employed, this can be considered as an alternative to the conventional reductive amination.magnified image
Here we designed and synthesized a NN–CoII bidentate complex and efficiently used it for general and expedient amination of alcohols under benign, solventlessconditions. Both primary (including unactivated aliphatic) alcohols and sterically hindered secondary alcohols exhibited very good reactivity and provided diverse amines with good substrate scope (88 examples; up to 95% yields) and excellent