O-2-mediated dehydrogenative amination of phenols

A method was developed for the direct dehydrogenative construction of C-N bonds between unprotected phenols and a series of cyclic anilines without resorting to any kind of metal activation of either substrate and without the use of halides. The resulting process relies on the exclusively organic activation of molecular oxygen and the subsequent oxidation of the aniline substrate. This allows the coupling of ubiquitous phenols, thus furnishing aminophenols through an atom-economical and most sustainable dehydrogenative amination method. This new reactivity, which relies on the intrinsic organic reactivity of cumene in what can be seen as a modified Hock activation process of oxygen, is expected to have a large impact on the formation of C-N bonds in organic synthesis.