Iridium(III)-Catalyzed Regioselective Intermolecular Unactivated Secondary Csp(3) -H Bond Amidation

For the first time, a highly regioselective intermolecular sulfonylamidation unactivated secondary Csp(3) -H bond has been achieved using Ir(III) catalysts. The introduced N,N'-bichelating ligand plays a crucial role in enabling iridium-nitrene insertion into a secondary Csp(3) -H bond via an outer-sphere pathway. Mechanistic studies and density functional theory (DFT) calculations demonstrated that a two-electron concerted nitrene insertion was involved in this Csp(3) -H amidation process. This method tolerates a broad range of linear and branched-chain N-alkylamides, and provides efficient access to diverse γ-sulfonamido-substituted aliphatic amines.