Selective reductive amination of biomass-derived aldehydes/ketones to primary amines

Primary amines are important feedstocks to many industries but are highly challenging to synthesise in bulk. We request 7 days on TOSCA to carry out inelastic neutron scattering (INS) study of a multifunctional catalyst for the efficient reductive amination of biomass-derived aldehydes and ketones with high selectivity to primary amines. The proposed study will investigate the vibrational spectroscopy of the catalyst, adsorption of guest molecules and any possible reaction intermediates on catalyst surface. In particular, this study aims to reveal the roles of the MOF on promoting the catalytic efficiency and selectivity. This recently-discovered multifunctional catalyst by our group exhibit extremely high selectivity of reductive amination of biomass-derived substrates to primary amines with significant industrial value.