A new iron-catalyzed diastereoselective aminobromination method is reported for both internal and terminal olefins (yield up to 90% and dr up to >20:1). In this transformation, a functionalized hydroxylamine and bromide ion were used as the nitrogen and bromine source, respectively. This method is compatible with a broad range of olefins and provides a convenient approach to synthetically valuable vicinal bromo primary amines. Our studies suggest that both the diastereoselectivity and enantioselectivity for the olefin aminobromination can be controlled by iron catalysts.
Keywords: alkenes; bromine; diastereoselectivity; iron; nitrogen.