Electrochemical Cross-Dehydrogenative Aromatization Protocol for the Synthesis of Aromatic Amines

Org Lett. 2022 Feb 4;24(4):1011-1016. doi: 10.1021/acs.orglett.1c04129. Epub 2022 Jan 21.

Abstract

The introduction of amines onto aromatics without metal catalysts and chemical oxidants is synthetically challenging. Herein, we report the first example of an electrochemical cross-dehydrogenative aromatization (ECDA) reaction of saturated cyclohexanones and amines to construct anilines without additional metal catalysts and chemical oxidants. This reaction exhibits a broad scope of cyclohexanones including heterocyclic ketones, affording a variety of aromatic amines with various functionalities, and shows great potential in the synthesis of biologically active compounds.