The activation of N-H bonds has been shown to be an important step in a variety of organometallic reaction mechanisms. For example, the iridium fragment (tBuPCP)Ir (tBuPCP = {κ<sup>3</sup>-2,6-bis[(di-<i>tert</i>-butylphosphino)methyl]phenyl}) has been shown to catalytically convert secondary and tertiary amines into imines and enamines, respectively. My group has previously reported results of studies with various primary amines, including the catalytic production of nitriles with selected alkyl amines. However, aryl amines yield more complicated product mixtures due to competing C-H activation mechanisms. In order to better understand these latter mechanisms, a series of amine and imine substrates were studied using (tBuPCP)Ir and norbornene as a hydrogen acceptor. The results of our experiments show that a remarkably diverse gallery of products can be generated depending on the steric and conformational attributes of the initial substrate.

Investigating the mechanism of N-H bond activation by a sterically congested PCP-iridium complex

249th National Meeting (2015)

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