Visible‐Light‐Enabled Direct Decarboxylative N‐Alkylation

Development of efficient and selective C-N bond-forming reactions from abundant feedstock chemicals remains a central theme in organic chemistry, due to the key roles of amines in synthesis, drug discovery and materials science. Here, we present a dual catalytic system for N -alkylation of diverse aromatic carbocyclic and heterocyclic amines directly with carboxylic acids, by-passing preactivation as redox-active esters. The reaction that is enabled by visible light-driven, acridine-catalyzed decarboxylation provides access to N -alkylated secondary and tertiary anilines, and N -heterocycles. Additional N -functionalization modes, including dual alkylation, installation of metabolically robust deuterated methyl groups and tandem ring formation further demonstrate the potential of the direct decarboxylative alkylation (DDA) reaction.