Thesis presented October 29, 2018
Abstract:
Amines are essential compounds in biology, pharmacy and agriculture. Therefore, their direct synthesis is a major issue in chemistry. The work presented in this manuscript focuses on the study and development of syntheses integrating nitrene transfer by iron catalysts in order to obtain amines. In a first part, we studied the aziridination reaction with several iron catalysts on different olefins. We report here, how mechanistic studies coupled with investigations of electronic structures and reactivity profiles, by quantum methods of DFT type, can lead to a complete understanding of the mechanism, as well as to the rational development of new iron catalysts for the aziridination reaction. We have been able to establish that electron affinity plays a major role in this type of transformation. In a second part, we studied the possibility to integrate iron-catalysed nitrene transfer in multi-sequential processes. We have been able to obtain amidines and imidazolines in multicomponent reactions
via the reaction between a substrate, a nitrene donor, a nitrile and an iron catalyst. The DFT calculations were able to confirm the mechanism proposed experimentally. A second study was to highlight telescoping reactions through the synthesis of 2-iminothiazolidines via the ring opening of an aziridine followed by the insertion of an isothiocyanate with good yields. These two types of reactions have shown the strong potential of nitrene transfer in multi-sequential reactions and open the way to the development of new efficient synthesis routes in the context of green chemistry.
Keywords:
Catalysis, Iron complexes, Nitrene transfer, Mechanistic studies, Multi-sequential reactions, Amines synthesis