Micellar Catalysis for a Sustainable Hydroaminomethylation Process in Water

Hydroaminomethylation (HAM) is one of the most interesting atom-economical processes for the production of amines. Herein we report the use of combined micellar and microwave catalysis for the HAM of aniline with allylbenzene by using water as the reaction medium in high yield and regioselectivity with a full recovery of the catalyst in the water/micellar media that can be reused several times without drastic impacts on the reaction yields. The final amine is obtained as a pure product by directly eluting the reaction mixture from SCX cartridges with ethanolic ammonia. Finally, the life cycle assessment of the microwave-assisted micellar catalyzed process is reported, confirming the sustainability of the developed methodology with respect to similar protocols. A possible extension of the proposed protocol to other substrates is also successfully explored.