Atom-economic dehydrogenative amide synthesis via ruthenium catalysis

Recently, a class of dehydrogenative transformations for amide bond formation have been developed. These transformations are atom-economic and environmentally-benign processes with their respective starting materials of alcohols and amines, aldehydes and amines, as well as symmetrical esters and amines, showing a promising prospect for applications. These unique protocols have been reported using various ruthenium-based catalytic systems. However, challenges still exist in this area. For example, existing catalytic systems usually suffer from low efficiency, high catalyst loading, and lack of structural diversity.