Tuning the Efficiency of Electrocatalytic Primary Amine Synthesis via Reductive Amination of Levulinic Acid Using Pb as a Catalytic Additive

Electrocatalytic reductive amination (ECRA) offers a sustainable approach for the synthesis of primary amines by replacing stoichiometric reducing agents with electrons and using water as both solvent and proton source. This atom‐efficient strategy minimizes waste, avoids hazardous reagents, and eliminates the need for hydrogen handling. The coupling of ECRA with biomass‐derived substrates underscores the overall sustainability potential of this synthesis approach. However, current ECRA systems are limited by low substrate conversion, poor Faradaic efficiencies, competing side reactions, and high overpotentials. In this work, we overcome these limitations by developing a highly efficient electrocatalytic system for the reductive amination of biomass‐derived levulinic acid as a model reaction. To this end, we use a simple two‐electrode setup operated under galvanostatic conditions combined with the addition of ppm‐amounts of lead as a catalytic additive. We achieve complete substrate conversion, Faradaic efficiencies of up to 70%, and product selectivities exceeding 98%. These findings demonstrate the potential of ECRA as a practical approach for efficient and sustainable primary amine synthesis.