Catalytic asymmetric hydroamination of unactivated internal olefins to aliphatic amines

Elaborate amines from commodity olefins Fine spatial control over the formation of carbon-nitrogen bonds is essential to the synthesis of many pharmaceutical and agrochemical compounds. Yang et al. synthesized a copper catalyst that shows exceptional discrimination between similar substituents in the addition of N-H bonds across the C-C double bonds of simple olefins. In particular, the catalyst favors one of two mirror-image products that differ in the relative orientations of methyl and ethyl groups. This selectivity fosters the use of readily available commodity olefins in the preparation of complex chiral amines. Science , this issue p. 62