A Highly Active Palladium Catalyst for Intermolecular Hydroamination. Factors that Control Reactivity and Additions of Functionalized Anilines to Dienes and Vinylarenes

We report a catalyst for intermolecular hydroamination of vinylarenes that is substantially more active for this process than catalysts published previously. With this more reactive catalyst, we demonstrate that additions of amines to vinylarenes and dienes occur in the presence of potentially reactive functional groups, such as ketones with enolizable hydrogens, free alcohols, free carboxylic acids, free amides, nitriles, and esters. The catalyst for these reactions is generated from [Pd(η³-allyl)Cl]₂ (with or without added AgOTf) or [Pd(CH₃CN)₄](BF₄)₂ and Xantphos (9,9-dimethyl-4,5-bis(diphenylphosphino)xanthene), which generates complexes with large P−Pd−P bite angles. Studies on the rate of the C−N bond-forming step that occurs by attack of amine on an η³-phenethyl and an η³-allyl complex were conducted to determine the effect of the bite angle on the rate of this nucleophilic attack. Studies on model η³-benzyl complexes containing various bisphosphines showed that the nucleophilic attack was faster for complexes containing larger P−Pd−P bite angles. Studies of substituted unsymmetrical and unsubstituted symmetrical model η³-allyl complexes showed that nucleophilic attack on complexes ligated by Xantphos was faster than on complexes bearing ligands with smaller bite angles and that nucleophilic attack on unsymmetrical allyl complexes with larger bite angle ligands was faster than on unsymmetrical allyl complexes with smaller bite angle ligands. However, monitoring of catalytic reactions of dienes by ³¹P NMR spectroscopy showed that the concentration of active catalyst was the major factor that controlled rates for reactions of symmetrical dienes catalyzed by complexes of phosphines with smaller bite angles. The identity of the counterion also affected the rate of attack:  reactions of allylpalladium complexes with chloride counterion occurred faster than reactions of allylpalladium complexes with triflate or tetrafluoroborate counterion. As is often observed, the dynamics of the allyl and benzyl complexes also depended on the identity of the counterion.