General and Selective Iron-Catalyzed Transfer Hydrogenation of Nitroarenes without Base

The first well-defined iron-based catalyst system for the reduction of nitroarenes to anilines has been developed applying formic acid as reducing agent. Abroad range of substrates including other reducible functional groups were converted to the corresponding anilines in good to excellent yields at mild conditions. Notably, the process constitutes a rare example of base-free transfer hydrogenations.