An air and moisture stable 2‐hydroxypyridine based bifunctional ruthenium NNN‐pincer complex catalyzed efficient (TON=42840) N‐alkylation of amines under mild conditions. Surprisingly, with cyclic secondary amines this methodology selectively produced only amides. Notably, N‐methylation of several amines was achieved by using methanol as a green methylating agent. Furthermore, with lower catalyst loading (0.2 mol%) and shorter reaction time (6 h) numerous substituted quinolines were synthesized from 2‐aminobenzyl alcohols and secondary alcohols. The effectiveness of this protocol was further extended by successfully synthesizing 2‐alkylaminoquinolines in a one‐pot fashion from amino alcohol, aliphatic nitriles, and alcohols. Gram scale synthesis of various compounds was also investigated to demonstrate the synthetic applicability of this methodology.

中文翻译：

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钌（N）-NNN-Pincer-复杂催化的各种醇与胺之间的反应，可持续地形成C-N和C-C键

空气和湿气稳定的基于2-羟基吡啶的双官能钌NNN-钳子络合物在温和条件下催化胺的高效（TON = 42840）N-烷基化。出人意料的是，对于环状仲胺，该方法仅选择性地产生酰胺。值得注意的是，几种胺的N-甲基化是通过使用甲醇作为绿色甲基化剂实现的。此外，由于催化剂负载量较低（0.2摩尔％）和反应时间较短（6小时），因此由2-氨基苄醇和仲醇合成了许多取代的喹啉。通过从氨基醇，脂肪族腈和醇中一锅法成功合成2-烷基氨基喹啉，进一步扩大了该协议的有效性。