Fluorous biphasic catalysts

The term fluorous biphase has been proposed to cover fully fluorinated hydrocarbon solvents (or other fluorinated inert materials, for example ethers) that are immiscible with organic solvents at ambient conditions. Like ionic liquids the ideal concept is that reactants and catalysts would be soluble in the (relatively high-boiling) fluorous phase under reaction conditions but that products would readily separate into a distinct phase at ambient conditions (Figure 5.5). 

Fluorous biphasic systems operate on the premise that the catalyst complex is preferentially soluble in the fluorous phase. This is achieved by synthesising fluorinated ligands that have a high weight-percentage of fluorine. It has been reported that for a complex to be preferentially soluble in fluorous solvents it must contain >60... 

In a similar fashion, 2 a, 2 c, 4 a and 4 c were also tested in the hydrogenation of 1-hexene under fluorous biphasic conditions (l-hexene/PFMCH = l 2 (v v)) [12, 14]. Relatively low activities were found for all catalysts, with activities increasing in the order 4a<4c<2a<2c. 

Remarkably, the use of a fluorous biphasic solvent system in combination with a [Rh(NBD)(DPPE)]+-type catalyst (NBD = norbornadiene) copolymerized into a porous nonfluorous ethylene dimethacrylate polymer, resulted in an increased activity of the catalyst relative to a situation when only toluene was used as solvent [30]. The results were explained by assuming that fluorophobicity of the substrate (methyl-trans-cinnamate) leads to a relatively higher local substrate concentration inside the cavities of the polymer when the fluorous solvent is used. That is, the polymer could be viewed as a better solvent than the fluorous solvent system. This interpretation was supported by the observations that (i) the increase in activity correlates linearly with the volume fraction of fluorous solvent (PFMCH) and (ii) the porous ethylene dimethacrylate polymer by itself lowers the concentration of decane in PFMCH from 75 mM to 50 mM, corresponding to a 600 mM local concentration of decane in the polymer. Gas to liquid mass transport limitation of dihydrogen could be mled out as a possible cause. 

Recently, the fluorous biphasic separation technique has been enriched with two new developments, both of which were demonstrated in hydrogenation. The need for a fluorous solvent can be eliminated by using fluorous silica as a fluorous catalyst scavenger. In liquid-liquid biphasic systems, reversible expan-... 

The technique now called fluorous biphasic catalysis was apparently first described in the Ph.D. thesis of M. Vogt in 1991 however, these studies did not become known to the community until sometime later. W. Keim, M. Vogt, P. Wasserscheid, B. Driessen-Holscher, Perfluorinated polyethers for the immobilization of homogeneous nickel catalysts , J. Mol. Catal A Chem. 1999,139,171. 

I. T. Horvath, J. R abai, Facile Catalyst Separation without Water Fluorous Biphase Hydroformylation of Olefins , Science 1994, 266, 72. 

M. Cavazzini, F. Montanari, G. Pozzi, S. Quia, Perfluorocarbon-Soluble Catalysts and Reagents and the Application of FBS (Fluorous Biphase System) to Organic Synthesis , J. Fluorine Chem. 1999, 94,183. 

R. H. Fish, Fluorous Biphasic Catalysis A New Paradigm for the Separation of Homogeneous Catalysts from their Reaction Substrates and products , Chem. Fur. J. 1999, 5,1677. 

If nonvolatile liquids are to be used to avoid the problems associated with volatile organic solvents, then it is very desirable that there is some convenient way of recovering the reaction products from the liquid. This approach is used in the biphasic systems described in Chapters 2-5. In the fluorous biphase (Chapter 3), reagents and catalysts are fine-tuned by adding perfluoroalkyl chains, known as ponytails , to ensure that only those chemicals will mix with the fluorous layer. Purification is simply a matter of separating the two phases. Transition metal catalysts with fluorous ligands will remain in the fluorous phase, and the whole catalyst-solvent mixture may be reused for another batch of reactions, as shown schematically in Figure 1.20b. 

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