Izabela Czeluńsniak is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Chemistry, University of Wrocław, and has led the Department of Inorganic Chemistry since 2024. She earned her PhD in 2003, working on homogeneous catalysis, and later expanded her research to ruthenium-catalyzed polymer synthesis. She completed a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Durham (UK) and later secured a Marie Curie European Reintegration Grant. Since 2006, her research has focused on catalytic reactions of alkynes. She has authored 38 peer-reviewed papers and co-authored a chapter in Handbook of Metathesis, edited by R. H. Grubbs.

Lecture title:

Enamines synthesis via hydroamination of terminal alkynes mediated by W(0) complexes

The hydroamination process leading to the formation of C–N bond is one of the most desirable reactions in organic chemistry since the natural products and synthetic drugs became accessible by a synthetic sequence involving hydroamination step.[1] This reaction has become of interest to scientists because it enables the conversion of readily available and rather cheap starting materials into enamines in one step with 100% atom efficiency. 

Recently, we found the highly selective and efficient hydroamination of alkynes with cyclic secondary amines in the presence of cis-[W(CO)4(pip)2] (where pip = piperidine).[2] The remarkable results inspired us to test the W(0) complex activity in hydroamination of a wider group of alkynes.

Here, an improved protocol of hydroamination of broad scope of alkynes at smooth conditions relying on the use of easily accessible cis-[W(CO)4(pip)2] will be presented. On the basis of the experimental results, the pathways of the catalytic hydroamination of alkyne with enamine will be also discussed.

References:

[1] S. A. Kelly et al., Chem. Rev. 118 (2018)349– 367.; A. M. Alvarez-Constantino et al., J. Org. Chem.
88 (2023) 1185−1193.; Z. Tashrifi et al., Asian J. Org. Chem. 9 (2020), 969–991.
[2] P. Kocięcka, I. Czeluśniak and T. Szymańska-Buzar, Adv. Synth.Catal.356 (2014) 3319–3324.