An efficient and environmentally friendly catalytic route for the reductive amination of carbonyl compounds has been designed. First, a one-pot procedure has been followed for the synthesis and incorporation of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) into a mesoporous silica solid by using light as an abundant and clean energy source. Then, the as-prepared material has been successfully employed as a heterogeneous catalyst in the production of secondary and tertiary amines by reductive amination using Ph(Me)2SiH as the reducing agent. The endurance of the catalyst has been demonstrated in batch, and a continuous flow process allowing the safe preparation of multigram amounts of reductive amination products (accumulated TON = 434 in 18 h operation involving 6 sequential examples) has been implemented. The scope of the reaction has also been extended to the synthesis of more challenging active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), such as indoprofen precursors and biomass-derived products, which were obtained in good to excellent yields.
