Sodium Trifluoroacetate mediated Copper-Catalyzed -Michael addition of -unsaturated olefins with aromatic amines.

We present a sodium trifluoroacetate (CFCONa) mediated copper-catalyzed -Michael addition of aromatic amines with activated olefins under mild, aqueous reaction conditions. This simplistic protocol employs a copper catalyst (10 mol%) and water as solvent. This transformation occurs precisely with aromatic substituted amines containing both electron-donating (EDG) and electron-withdrawing (EWG) groups.