Ambient-Temperature Synthesis of Primary Amines via Reductive Amination of Carbonyl Compounds

Efficient synthesis of primary amines via low-temperature reductive amination of carbonyl compounds using NH3 and H2 as the nitrogen and hydrogen resources is highly desired and challenging in the chemistry community. Herein, we employed naturally occurring phytic acid as a renewable precursor to fabricate titanium phosphate (TiP)-supported Ru nanocatalysts with different reduction degrees of RuO2 (Ru/TiP-x, x represents the reduction temperature) by combining ball milling and molten-salt processes. Very interestingly, the obtained Ru/TiP-100 had good catalytic performance for the reductive amination of carbonyl compounds at ambient temperature, resulting from the synergistic cooperation of the support (TiP) and the Ru/RuO2 with a suitable proportion of Ru0 (52%). Various carbonyl compounds could be efficiently converted into the corresponding primary amines with high yields. More importantly, the conversion of other substrates with reducible groups could also be achieved at ambient temperature. Detailed investigations indicated that the partially reduced Ru and the support (TiP) were indispensable. The high activity and selectivity of Ru/TiP-100 catalyst originates from the relatively high acidity and the suitable electron density of metallic Ru0.