Site-selective copper(I) catalyzed hydrogenation of amides

We present a bifunctional catalyst consisting of a copper(I)/N-heterocyclic carbene and an organocatalytic guanidine moiety that enables for the first time a copper(I) catalyzed reduction of amides with H2 as the terminal reducing agent. The guanidine allows for reactivity tuning of the originally weakly nucleophilic copper(I) hydrides – formed in situ –to be able to reacting with diffi-cult-to-reduce amides. Additionally, the guanidine moiety is key for the selective recognition of “privileged” amides based on simple and readily available heterocycles in the presence of other amides within one molecule to give rise to a hitherto unknown site-selective catalytic amide hydrogenation. A substrate scope, mechanistic investigations as well as a working hypothesis, supported by computational analysis for the site-selectivity is presented.