Insight into the Amine-Assisted Metal-free Chemoselctive Reductive Amination of Carbonyl Compounds Under Mild Conditions

Tertiary amines are ubiquitous and play an essential role in organocatalysis, pharmaceuticals, and fine chemicals. Amongst various synthetic procedures known for their synthesis, the reductive amination of carbonyl compounds has been found to be a proficient method. Over the past few decades, different synthetic strategies for reductive amination have been developed. Most of them suffer from the use of transition metals and/or harsh reaction conditions. Herein, we present an efficient, operationally simple protocol for the chemoselective reductive amination of carbonyl compounds to furnish the tertiary amines. The strategy encompasses broad substrate scope under the metal-free condition at room temperature and does not require any solvent. A detailed mechanistic investigation was executed with the aid of control experiments and computational study to shed light on the reaction pathway.