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The preparation of allylic amines is traditionally accomplished by reactions of amines with reactive electrophiles, such as allylic halides, sulfonates, or oxyphosphonium species; such methods involve hazardous reagents, generate stoichiometric waste streams, and often suffer from side reactions (such as overalkylation). We report here the first broad-scope nickel-catalysed direct amination of allyl alcohols: An inexpensive Ni II /Zn couple enables the allylation of primary, secondary, and electron-deficient amines without the need for glove-box techniques. Under mild conditions, primary and secondary aliphatic amines react smoothly with a range of allyl alcohols, giving secondary and tertiary amines efficiently. This "totally catalytic" method can also be applied to electron-deficient nitrogen nucleophiles; the practicality of the process was demonstrated in an efficient, gram-scale preparation of the calcium antagonist drug substance flunarizine (Sibelium®)., (© 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

A "totally catalytic" nickel(0)-mediated method for base-free direct alkylation of allyl alcohols and allyl amines is reported. The reaction is selective for monoallylation, uses an inexpensive Ni II precatalyst system, and requires no activating reagents to be present., (© 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.)

Heterocyclic architectures offer powerful creative possibilities to a range of chemistry end-users. This is particularly true of heterocycles containing a high proportion of sp 3 -carbon atoms, which confer precise spatial definition upon chemical probes, drug substances, chiral monomers and the like. Nonetheless, simple catalytic routes to new heterocyclic cores are infrequently reported, and methods making use of biomass-accessible starting materials are also rare. Here, we demonstrate a new method allowing rapid entry to spirocyclic bis-heterocycles, in which inexpensive iron(III) catalysts mediate a highly stereoselective C-C bond-forming cyclization cascade reaction using (2-halo)aryl ethers and amines constructed using feedstock chemicals readily available from plant sources. Fe(acac) 3 mediates the deiodinative cyclization of (2-halo)aryloxy furfuranyl ethers, followed by capture of the intermediate metal species by Grignard reagents, to deliver spirocycles containing two asymmetric centres. The reactions offer potential entry to key structural motifs present in bioactive natural products.