actually it was foxy2 who found that 1st ref., coupla years ago. it keeps getting rediscovered! but theres more - a related high yielding, simpler reaction was published 9 issues later. this is an application of the '93 article, using only dimethylamine as amine. they used a small number of substrates and only in sub-gram amts. as well, so this is of dubious Hive usefulness. that said - indoleacetaldehyde? indoleacetone and (the rarely mentioned) a-N,N-TMT?
Reductive Amination of Aldehydes and Ketones with Dimethylamine Using Borohydride Exchange Resin (BER)
by Lee, Cho, and Yoon. Bull. Kor. Chem. Soc. 1998 vol.19, #11 pg.1268
http://journal.kcsnet.or.kr/publi/bul/bu98n11/1268.pdf
an aldehyde or ketone is mixed with EtOH solvent, dimethylamine in EtOH, triethylamine HCl, and BER. this is stirred for an hour or two at RT and the N,N-dimethylamine'd product is isolated in high yield.
like the other articles, they didnt do this to anything interesting. the substrates that were used do demonstrate good selectivity, however. btw, has anyone heard of the 1st article being used with P2P? perhaps b4 the product was N-methylated? didnt think so. what about a substituted phenylacetaldehyde?
and in the '93 article, what would you get if ammonium formate was used instead of acetate? i also note methylamine was not used. well, why not?