Graphite oxide as an efficient and durable metal-free catalyst for aerobic oxidative coupling of amines to imines

Abstract

Graphite oxide was found to be a highly efficient, reusable and cost-effective heterogeneous catalyst for the direct metal-free transformation of amines to afford the corresponding imines under mild and neat conditions with molecular oxygen as the terminal oxidant. This method is simple, economic and environmentally benign, resulting in practical advantages for the convenient synthesis of imines and their derivatives.