Impregnated palladium on magnetite as catalyst for multicomponent reductive amination reactions and other related reducing processes

The impregnated palladium on magnetite catalyst is a versatile system for different reduction processes using inexpensive polymehtylhydrosiloxane, including multicomponent reductive amination reactions, and aldehyde, imine, sulfinimide and sulfoxide reductions. This catalyst avoids the use of any type of expensive and quite expensive organic ligand, showing excellent yields, under mild reaction conditions. The catalyst is easily removed from the reaction medium, just by using a magnet. The catalytic system is very selective permitting the discrimination between ketones and aldehydes in the reductive amination process. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.