Selective Synthesis of Symmetrical Secondary Amines from Nitriles with a Pt-CuFe/Fe O Catalyst and Ammonia Borane as Hydrogen Donor.

Hydrogenation of nitriles is an efficient and environmentally friendly route to synthesize symmetrical secondary amines, but it usually produces a mixture of amines, imines, and hydrogenolysis by-products. Herein we report a magnetic quaternary-component Pt-CuFe/Fe O nanocatalyst system for the selective synthesis of symmetrical secondary amines with ammonia borane as hydrogen donor. The catalyst with a low Pt loading (0.456 wt%) is the source of the activity, and the d-band electron transfer from Cu to Fe enhances the selectivity. This synergistic effect results in the transformation of benzonitrile to dibenzylamine with excellent conversion (up to 99 %) and nearly quantitative selectivity (up to 96 %) under mild reaction conditions, nevertheless, the reaction TOF is as high as up to 1409.9 h . A variety of nitriles are suitable for the synthesis of symmetrical secondary amines. More importantly, unwanted hydrogenolysis byproducts, especially toluene, is not detected at all. In addition, the catalyst is magnetically recoverable, and it can be reused up to five times.