Diphosphines of dppf-Type Incorporating Electron-Withdrawing Furyl Moieties Substantially Improve the Palladium-Catalysed Amination of Allyl Acetates

Highly active Pd/diphosphine catalytic systems incorporating new, air-stable ferrocenyl-furylphosphines allow nucleophilic allylic amination at room temperature with unprecedented turnover frequencies. For instance, in the presence of 0.01 mol % catalyst the coupling of aniline to allyl acetate occurs at a TOF of more than 10,000 h - 1 ; even the addition of the less nucleophile morpholine to allyl acetate is observed with a TOF of 4250 h - 1 . The amination of the sterically demanding geranyl acetate, a monoterpene derivative of interest in the flavour industry, at low catalyst loadings demonstrates the scope of this methodology, which provides in addition noticeable advantages in terms of…