Aerobic Dehydrogenation of Secondary Amines with an Oxidative Bifunctional Quinone Catalyst

Wendlandt and Stahl have reported a novel aerobic dehydrogenation of secondary amines inspired by aerobic amine oxidation mediated by copper amine oxidases. In this report, they demonstrate the efficient aerobic dehydrogenation of secondary amine substrates using 1,10-phenanthroline-5,6-dione as an oxidative bifunctional o-quinone catalyst and ZnI₂ as a co-catalyst. The coordination of two atoms of nitrogen on o-quinone to Zn²⁺ enhances the dehydrogenation activity, and the iodine anion plays an important redox-mediator role to promote aerobic catalytic turnover.