Thermomorphic biphasic catalysis

Keywords Soluble polymers Thermomorphic Biphasic catalysis Latent biphasic catalysis Separation... 

The use of thermomorphic systems has recently been studied as a way of achieving catalyst separation in homogeneous catalysis. For example, a biphasic hydroformylation catalyst system was developed to take advantage of the unusual solvent characteristics of perfluorocarbons combined with typical organic solvents (4). Fluorous/organic mixtures such as perfiuoromethylcyclohexane... 

In a first approximation, the new methods correspond to the conventional solvent techniques of supported catalysts (cf Section 3.1.1.3), liquid biphasic catalysis (cf Section 3.1.1.1), and thermomorphic ( smart ) catalysts. One major difference relates to the number of reaction phases and the mass transfer between them. Owing to their miscibility with reaction gases, the use of an SCF will reduce the number of phases and potential mass transfer barriers in processes such as hydrogenation, carbonylations, oxidation, etc. For example, hydroformylation in a conventional liquid biphasic system is in fact a three-phase reaction (g/1/1), whereas it is a two-phase process (sc/1) if an SCF is used. The resulting elimination of mass transfer limitations can lead to increased reaction rates and selectiv-ities and can also facilitate continuous flow processes. Most importantly, however, the techniques summarized in Table 2 can provide entirely new solutions to catalyst immobilization which are not available with the established set of liquid solvents. 

A second nucleophilic catalyst supported by PtBS is the polymer-bound di-methylaminopyridine analog that was also used in latent biphasic catalysis with the poly(JV-alkylacrylamide) support 129 [131]. This example of a nucleophilic catalyst (133) was used to catalyze formation of a t-Boc derivative of 2,6-di-methylphenol (Eq. 70). In this case, the extent of recovery of the catalyst and the yields of product were directly comparable to those seen with thermomorphic systems. The isolated yield for the first five cycles of this reaction were 34.3, 60.9,82.2,94.6, and 99%. In this case we reused catalyst 133 through 20 cycles. Yields after the first few cycles were essentially quantitative (ca. 93% average for each of 20 cycles). Separation of the polymer from the aqueous ethanol phase was quantitative as judged by either visual observation or UV-visible spectroscopic analysis. 

Figure 6. Thermomorphic system where the catalysis is carried out homogeneously at 70 °C in a monophasic system but where the separation is carried out at room temperature in a biphasic system with the soluble polymer-supported catalyst (e,g, 5 or 6) exclusively dissolved in the aqueous ethanol phase at 20...

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