Room Temperature Direct Reductive Amination of Carbonyl compounds by L‐ascorbic Acid‐ NaBH4 in Water

Abstract A novel concept for the direct reductive amination of aldehyde and ketones has been developed which uses largely available, low cost and harmless L‐ascorbic acid as sustainable, versatile, non‐toxic catalyst and NaBH 4 as a reductant. Described herein is a one‐pot conversion of effortlessly accessible primary and secondary amines to biologically active secondary and tertiary amines respectively in water at room temperature within 15–45 minutes. The generality of reaction was established by using various aromatic and aliphatic aldehydes, ketones and amines with 20 examples ranging from 65 to 97 % yield. The mild condition, environmentally benign byproducts and broad scope of makes this transformation very useful.