1 Beijing National Laboratory of Molecular Sciences, CAS Key Laboratory of Molecular Recognition and Function, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China. haifengdu@iccas.ac.cn.
A catalytic metal-free hydrogenation of naphthylamines using B(C6F5)3 as a catalyst was successfully achieved under mild conditions for the first time to furnish a variety of tetrahydronaphthylamines in 88-99% yields.