Hydrothermal water enabling one-pot transformation of amines to alcohols via supported Pd catalysts

Abstract

Simple, direct conversion of amines to alcohols is quite rare and remains challenging. Here, with the unique catalytic role of hydrothermal water, two green and one-pot strategies were proposed to enable water nucleophilic attack at amines, which were achieved by dehydrogenation of amines or building a targeting group. Furthermore, one strategy was applied in the conversion of glutamic acid, the most abundant amino acid in microalgae, to γ-butyrolactone, which is an industrial chemical derived from fossil fuels. This study provides simple and new methods for the deamination of amines and could provide to new insight into the utilization of protein-rich biomass.