Amination of allylic alcohols is an effective approach in the facile synthesis of N-allylic alkylation or N-alkylation amines. Recently, a series of catalysts were devised to push forward this transformation. However, current synthetic methods are typically limited to achieve either N-allylic alkylation or N-alkylation products via a certain catalyst. In this article, a pH-mediated selective synthesis of N-allylic alkylation or N-alkylation amines with allylic alcohols via an iridium catalyst with water as the environmental benign solvent is revealed, enabling the miscellaneous synthesis of N-allylic alkylation and N-alkylation products in outstanding yields. Furthermore, a gram-scale experiment with low catalyst loading offers the potential to access a distinct entry for the synthesis of the antifungal drug naftifine.

Ketones are of great importance in synthesis, biology, and pharmaceuticals. This paper reports an iridium complexes‐catalyzed cross‐coupling of alcohols via hydrogen borrowing, affording a series of α‐alkylated ketones in high yield (86 %–95 %) and chemoselectivities (>99 : 1). This methodology has the advantages of low catalyst loading (0.1 mol%) and environmentally benign water as the solvent. Studies have shown the amount of base has a great impact on chemoselectivities. Meanwhile, deuteration experiments show water plays an important role in accelerating the reduction of the unsaturated ketones intermediates. Remarkably, a gram‐scale experiment demonstrates this methodology of iridium‐catalyzed cross‐coupling of alcohols has potential application in the practical synthesis of α‐alkylated ketones.

An efficient iridium-catalyzed acceptorless dehydrogenative coupling (ADC) reaction for the preparation of various quinazolines from 2-aminoarylmethanols and amides or nitriles had been developed. A wide range of substituted 2-aminobenzyl alcohols and (hetero)aryl or alkyl benzamides and nitriles were well compatible to afford various quinazolines in excellent yields. This new strategy merits the high atom-economy, mild reaction condition, simple operation and suited to a variety of substrates.

Herein, we describe a method for the synthesis of functionalized quinolines from 2-aminobenzyl alcohols with α, β-unsaturated ketones. This method exhibits various functional groups tolerance, high-efficiency, environmentally benign and can be performed on a gram scale. Control experiment suggests this transformation is accomplished by iridium complex-catalyzed transfer hydrogenation, which is then followed by the Friedländer cyclization. The results display the alkali is essential for the high selectivities of this catalytic system.

The acceptorless dehydrogenative coupling (ADC) reaction is an efficient method for synthesizing quinoline and its derivatives. In this paper, various substituted quinolines were synthesized from 2-aminobenzyl alcohols and aryl/heteroaryl/alkyl secondary alcohols in one pot via a cyclometalated iridium-catalyzed ADC reaction. This method has some advantages, such as easy availability of raw materials, mild reaction conditions, wide range of substrates, and environmental friendliness which conforms to the principles of green chemistry. Furthermore, a gram-scale experiment with low catalyst loading offers the potential to access the aryl/heteroaryl quinolones in suitable amounts. In addition, the antibacterial and antifungal activities of the synthesized quinolines were evaluated in vitro, and the experimental results showed that the antibacterial activities of compounds 3ab, 3ad, and 3ah against Gram-positive bacteria and compound 3ck against C. albicans were better than the reference drug norfloxacin.