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We disclose herein a catalytic borrowing hydrogen method that enables an unprecedented, economical one-pot access to enantiopure tetrahydropyridines with minimal reagent use or waste formation. This method couples a few classes of readily available substrates with commercially available 1,3-amino alcohols, and delivers the valuable tetrahydropyridines of different substitution patterns free of N-protection. Such transformations are highly challenging to achieve, as multiple redox steps need to be realized in a cascade and numerous side reactions including a facile aromatization have to be overcome. Highly diastereoselective functionalizations of tetrahydropyridines also result in a general access to enantiopure di- and tri-substituted piperidines, which ranks the topmost frequent N-heterocycle in commercial drugs.

We report herein an unprecedented highly efficient Guerbet-type reaction at room temperature (catalytic TON up to >6000). This β-alkylation of secondary methyl carbinols with primary alcohols has significant advantage of delivering higher-order secondary alcohols in an economical, redox-neutral fashion. In addition, the first enantioselective Guerbet reaction has also been achieved using a commercially available chiral ruthenium complex to deliver secondary alcohols with moderate yield and up to 92 % ee. In both reactions, the use of a traceless ketone promoter proved to be beneficial for the catalytic efficiency.

The first catalytic enantioselective isomerization of secondary allylic alcohols to access ketones with a α-tertiary stereocenter is presented. The racemic allylic alcohol substrates can be converted to the enantioenriched ketone products in a stereoconvergent fashion. The use of commercially available catalysts and mild reaction conditions makes this an attractive method in stereoselective synthesis.

An efficient Lewis acid-assisted, iron-catalyzed amination of alcohols using borrowing hydrogen methodology was developed. In particular, silver fluoride was identified to be a highly effective additive to overcome the low efficiency in the amination of secondary alcohols catalyzed by Knolker's complex.