Ruthenium-Catalyzed Modular Synthesis of Cyclic Tertiary Amines from Lactams.

Reported is the development of a novel catalytic cascade reaction facilitating the modular synthesis of cyclic tertiary amines from simple lactam substrates and secondary alcohols. Using a single molecular ruthenium-triphos catalyst in the presence of molecular hydrogen enabled the versatile formation of various amines in high yield with excellent selectivity. Extending the reaction system to using an alcohol as the hydrogen transfer reagent allowed the reduction of lactams without the need for molecular hydrogen.