Development, Application and Mechanistic Investigation of Palladium Catalyzed Aerobic Oxidative Amination Methods

Palladium catalyzed oxidative transformations that employ readily available molecular oxygen as the stoichiometric oxidant enable economic synthetic routes to complex organic targets. This thesis focuses on the development of aerobic oxidative transformations that generate carbon-nitrogen bonds. Chapters 2 and 3 describe research projects that have expanded the scope and mechanistic understanding of reactions that involve amidopalladation of alkenes (aza-Wacker reactions). Chapters 4, 5 and 6 describe research projects that have targeted the discovery of aryl C--H amination reactions. Palladium catalyzed aerobic C--H amination reactions have limited precedent. Several approaches to address this challenge were tested, and promising results are discussed.