Iron-catalyzed methylation using the borrowing hydrogen approach

A general iron-catalyzed methylation has been developed using methanol as a sustainable C1 building block. This borrowing hydrogen approach employs a Knölker-type (cyclopentadienone)iron carbonyl complex as catalyst (2 mol %) and exhibits a broad reaction scope. A variety of ketones, indoles, oxindoles, amines and sulfonamides undergo mono- or dimethylation in excellent isolated yields (>60 examples, 79% average yield).

Analysis of reaction products from this methodology resulted in the following data:

1H, 19F and 13C NMR raw data files

IR spectra

High resolution mass spectrometry spectra.   

Research results based upon these data are published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.8b02158