Hydrosilylative reduction of secondary amides to amines catalyzed by geometry-constrained NNN-cobalt complexes

Reported herein is a well-defined geometry-constrained tridentate NNN-cobalt complex for the hydrosilylative reduction of secondary amides with the low-cost PMHS as the hydride donor reductant. In this catalytic protocol, a wide range of secondary amides, including benzamide-type and aliphatic carboxylic acid-derived secondary amides, served as suitable substrates to afford their corresponding secondary amines in moderate to excellent yields. The scaled-up reaction strongly demonstrated the practicality and efficiency of the developed method.