Biphasic transition

Simon, S.A. and T.J. McIntosh. 1984. Interdigitated hydrocarbon chain packing causes the biphasic transition behavior in lipid/alcohol suspensions. Biochim Biophys Acta 773 169-172. 

Biphasic catalysis is not a new concept for catalytic oligomerization chemistry. On the contrary, the oligomerization of ethylene was the first commercial example of a biphasic, transition metal catalyzed reaction. The process is known under the name Shell higher olefins process (SHOP) and the first patents originate from as early as the late sixties [234]. While the SHOP uses 1,4-butandiol as the catalyst phase. 

Figure 11 CPM-DSF characterization of noncovalent and disulfide-trapped complexes of a CXC chemokine and its receptor. (A) Melting curves plotting the increasing fluorescence of the CPM dye as a function of temperature. A biphasic transition is observed for the disulfide-trapped sample, likely due to the presence of both noncovalent and disulfide-trapped subpopulations. (B) First derivative curves of (A) demonstrate the positions of the peaks used to calculate Tm- A double-peak is clearly present for the disulfide-trapped sample. (C) Melting temperatures are calculated from the derivative curves.The disulfide-trapped sample shows two TmS one of which is indistinguishable from the noncovalent sample Tm-...

The hydrocarbon chain melting transition is facilitated by factors that reduce the polar headgroup network cohesion. The addition of water to cetyltrimethylam-monium tosylate produces a peak at 23°C, which is related to the melting of CTAT crystals (embedded in saturated aqueous solution below 23 C) to produce a liquid crystalline phase (in highly concentrated CTAT systems) or micellar solutions (in dilute systems). The peak is broad, probably due to the existence of a biphase transition zone. No melting peak related to the polar network was detected, probably because of the relatively weak cohesive forces in this particular polar network. The second peak detected in concentrated water-surfactant samples was due to the hexagonal mesophase-isotropic liquid transition [53]. 

Transition metal catalysis in liquid/liquid biphasic systems principally requires sufficient solubility and immobilization of the catalysts in the IL phase relative to the extraction phase. Solubilization of metal ions in ILs can be separated into processes, involving the dissolution of simple metal salts (often through coordination with anions from the ionic liquid) and the dissolution of metal coordination complexes, in which the metal coordination sphere remains intact. 

Since no special ligand design is usually required to dissolve transition metal complexes in ionic liquids, the application of ionic ligands can be an extremely useful tool with which to immobilize the catalyst in the ionic medium. In applications in which the ionic catalyst layer is intensively extracted with a non-miscible solvent (i.e., under the conditions of biphasic catalysis or during product recovery by extraction) it is important to ensure that the amount of catalyst washed from the ionic liquid is extremely low. Full immobilization of the (often quite expensive) transition metal catalyst, combined with the possibility of recycling it, is usually a crucial criterion for the large-scale use of homogeneous catalysis (for more details see Section 5.3.5). 

Because of the great importance of liquid-liquid biphasic catalysis for ionic liquids, all of Section 5.3 is dedicated to specific aspects relating to this mode of reaction, with special emphasis on practical, technical, and engineering needs. Finally, Section 5.4 summarizes a very interesting recent development for biphasic catalysis with ionic liquids, in the form of the use of ionic liquid/compressed CO2 biphasic mixtures in transition metal catalysis. 

Apart from the activation of a biphasic reaction by extraction of catalyst poisons as described above, an ionic liquid solvent can activate homogeneously dissolved transition metal complexes by chemical interaction. 

Finally, a special example of transition metal-catalyzed hydrogenation in which the ionic liquid used does not provide a permanent biphasic reaction system should be mentioned. The hydrogenation of 2-butyne-l,4-diol, reported by Dyson et al., made use of an ionic liquid/water system that underwent a reversible two-... 

As early as 1990, Chauvin and his co-workers from IFP published their first results on the biphasic, Ni-catalyzed dimerization of propene in ionic liquids of the [BMIM]Cl/AlCl3/AlEtCl2 type [4]. In the following years the nickel-catalyzed oligomerization of short-chain alkenes in chloroaluminate melts became one of the most intensively investigated applications of transition metal catalysts in ionic liquids to date. 

Obviously, there are many good reasons to study ionic liquids as alternative solvents in transition metal-catalyzed reactions. Besides the engineering advantage of their nonvolatile natures, the investigation of new biphasic reactions with an ionic catalyst phase is of special interest. The possibility of adjusting solubility properties by different cation/anion combinations permits systematic optimization of the biphasic reaction (with regard, for example, to product selectivity). Attractive options to improve selectivity in multiphase reactions derive from the preferential solubility of only one reactant in the catalyst solvent or from the in situ extraction of reaction intermediates from the catalyst layer. Moreover, the application of an ionic liquid catalyst layer permits a biphasic reaction mode in many cases where this would not be possible with water or polar organic solvents (due to incompatibility with the catalyst or problems with substrate solubility, for example). 

In comparison with traditional biphasic catalysis using water, fluorous phases, or polar organic solvents, transition metal catalysis in ionic liquids represents a new and advanced way to combine the specific advantages of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis. In many applications, the use of a defined transition metal complex immobilized on a ionic liquid support has already shown its unique potential. Many more successful examples - mainly in fine chemical synthesis - can be expected in the future as our loiowledge of ionic liquids and their interactions with transition metal complexes increases. 

Ambient-temperature ionic liquids have received much attention in both academia and industry, due to their potential as replacements for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) [1-3]. These studies have utilized the ionic liquids as direct replacements for conventional solvents and as a method to immobilize transition metal catalysts in biphasic processes. 

Indeed, these reactions proceed at 25 °C in ethanol-aqueous media in the absence of transition metal catalysts. The ease with which P-H bonds in primary phosphines can be converted to P-C bonds, as shown in Schemes 9 and 10, demonstrates the importance of primary phosphines in the design and development of novel organophosphorus compounds. In particular, functionalized hydroxymethyl phosphines have become ubiquitous in the development of water-soluble transition metal/organometallic compounds for potential applications in biphasic aqueous-organic catalysis and also in transition metal based pharmaceutical development [53-62]. Extensive investigations on the coordination chemistry of hydroxymethyl phosphines have demonstrated unique stereospe-cific and kinetic propensity of this class of water-soluble phosphines [53-62]. Representative examples outlined in Fig. 4, depict bidentate and multidentate coordination modes and the unique kinetic propensity to stabilize various oxidation states of metal centers, such as Re( V), Rh(III), Pt(II) and Au(I), in aqueous media [53 - 62]. Therefore, the importance of functionalized primary phosphines in the development of multidentate water-soluble phosphines cannot be overemphasized. 

Recently, great advancement has been made in the use of air and oxygen as the oxidant for the oxidation of alcohols in aqueous media. Both transition-metal catalysts and organocatalysts have been developed. Complexes of various transition-metals such as cobalt,31 copper [Cu(I) and Cu(II)],32 Fe(III),33 Co/Mn/Br-system,34 Ru(III and IV),35 and V0P04 2H20,36 have been used to catalyze aerobic oxidations of alcohols. Cu(I) complex-based catalytic aerobic oxidations provide a model of copper(I)-containing oxidase in nature.37 Palladium complexes such as water-soluble Pd-bathophenanthroline are selective catalysts for aerobic oxidation of a wide range of alcohols to aldehydes, ketones, and carboxylic acids in a biphasic... 

Dupont, J., Fonseca, G.S., Umpierre, A.P., Fichtner, P.F.P. and Teixeira, S.R. (2002) Transition-metal nanopartides in imidazolium ionic liquids recycable catalysts for biphasic hydrogenation reactions. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 124 (16), 4228—4229. 

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