Sustainable Alkylation of Nitriles with Alcohols by Manganese Catalysis

A general and chemoselective catalytic alkylation of nitriles using a homogeneous nonprecious manganese catalyst is presented. This alkylation reaction uses naturally abundant alcohols and readily available nitriles as coupling partners. The reaction tolerates a wide range of functional groups and heterocyclic moieties, efficiently providing useful cyanoalkylated products with water as the only side product. Importantly, methanol can be used as a C1 source and the chemoselective C-methylation of nitriles is achieved. The mechanistic investigations support the multiple role of the metal-ligand manganese catalyst, the dehydrogenative activation of the alcohol, alpha-C-H activation of the nitrile, and hydrogenation of the in-situ-formed unsaturated intermediate.