A convenient, highly stereoselective, metal-free synthesis of chiral amines

A low cost, efficient, metal-free highly stereoselective reduction of ketimines to chiral amines was developed. Different imines bearing a very cheap and removable chiral auxiliary were reduced simply by trichlorosilane in the presence of N,N-dimethyl-formamide, often in quantitative yield and complete control of the absolute stereochemistry, to afford highly enantiomerically enriched amines.