Dendrimers, as catalyst supports

Since the pioneering studies reported by van Koten and coworkers in 1994 [20], dendrimers as catalyst supports have been attracting increasing attention. The metaUodendrimers and their catalytic applications have been frequently reported and reviewed [7-15]. As a novel type of soluble macromolecular support, dendrimers feature homogeneous reaction conditions (faster kinetics, accessibility of the metal site, and so on) and enable the application of common analytical techniques such as thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and nuclear magnetic resonance... 

The same authors recently described the synthesis of similar rhodium-complexed dendrimers supported on a resin having both interior and exterior functional groups. These were tested as catalysts for the hydroformylation of aryl alkenes and vinyl esters (52). The results show that the reactions proceeded with high selectivity for the branched aldehydes, with excellent yields, even up to the tenth cycle. The hydroformylation experiments were carried out with first- and a second-generation rhodium-complexed dendrimers as catalysts, with a mixture of 34.5 bar of CO and 34.5 bar of H2 in dichloromethane at room temperature. Each catalyst was easily recovered by simple filtration and was reusable for at least six more cycles without... 

Despite the advantage of their easy separation, the use of conventional insoluble polymer-supported catalysts often suffered from a reduced catalytic activity and stereoselectivity, due either to diffusion problems or to a change of the preferred conformations within the chiral pocket created by the ligand around the metal center. In order to circumvent these problems, a new class of crosslinked macromolecule-namely dendronized polymers-has been developed and employed as catalyst supports. In general, two types of such solid-supported dendrimer have been reported (i) with the dendrimer as a hnker of the polymer support and (ii) with dendrons attached to the polymer support [12, 113]. 

Dendrimers are very attractive macromolecules with potential applications as catalyst supports. They are attractive both because they are discrete molecular species versus a mixture of molecules with varying degrees of polymer-... 

The binding of catalysts to soluble supports has the advantage that the catalytically active sites are uniformly distributed throughout the reaction media, as for the unsupported homogeneous counterparts. Furthermore, supported catalysts -especially dendritic systems - can sometimes show even higher selectivities than their small-molecule counterparts. Dendrimers as soluble supports, however, are not always easy to synthesize and usually require tedious synthetic protocols. 

Despite the repetitive and frequently time-consuming synthesis of dendrimers, interest in their use as catalyst supports persists as these macromolecules offer the potential to combine the most advantageous features of conventional heterogeneous and homogeneous catalysts. The molecular... 

The use of dendrimers as supports to anchor transition metal catalysts has attracted considerable attention over the past decades [48] (see also Chapter 4 of this book). Several groups studied the use of dendrimers immobilised on insoluble supports [49], and this type of material meet the requirements for catalysis in interphases. Alper reported the use of diphosphine functionalised polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimers... 

Since the pioneering work on dendritic structures by Vogtle et al.,[28] dendrimers have attracted much attention. The synthesis and investigation of their structural properties became a new field in science. The application of dendrimers as support molecules for homogeneous catalysts was first reported by Van Koten et al. in 1994.[29] Dendrimers have the advantage of having perfect structures unlike polymeric structures and are... 

The use of heterogeneous catalysts in this reaction has also been achieved palladium-montmorillonite clays [93] or palladium/activated carbon [94] in the presence of dppb transformed 2-allylphenols into lactones, the regiose-lectivity of the reaction being largely dependant on the nature of the support. Very recently, palladium complexes immobilized onto silica-supported (polyaminoamido)dendrimers were used as catalysts in the presence of dppb for the cyclocarbonylation of 2-allylphenols, 2-allylanilines, 2-vinylphenols, and 2-vinylanilines affording five-, six-, or seven-membered lactones and lactams. Good conversions are realized and the catalyst can be recycled 3-5 times [95]. 

After activation with MAO (molar ratios [Al] [Zr] = 1000) the polymerization of ethylene has been successfully carried out using the zirconocene functionalized dendrimer at 40 bar ethylene pressure and 70 °C. We obtained high activity and productivity values for the ethylene polymerization and polymers with very high molecular masses in the range of 2 x 10 g/mol. The polydispersity of the polymer is quite low (3.0) indicating the single site character of the catalytically active species. Optimization of this system and study of the mechanism are stiU under investigation. Nevertheless, these preliminary results reveal the suitability of polyphenylene dendrimers as supports for zirconocene catalysts. 

In a batch process, all dendritic catalysts showed very high activity. When a substrate-to-Pd molar ratio of 2000 was used, the conversions after 5 min were 49, 55, 45, and 47% when dendrimers with 4, 36, 8, and 24 phosphine ligands were used, respectively. These results show that all the active sites located at the periphery of the dendrimer support acted independently as catalysts. 

The palladium catalyst supported on the dendrimer with 24 phosphine end groups (2) was used in a CFMR. In the continuous process a solution of allyl trifluoroacetate and sodium diethyl 2-methylmalonate in THF (including -decane as an internal standard) was pumped through the reactor. Figure 4 shows the conversion as a function of the amount of substrate solution (expressed in reactor volumes) pumped through the reactor. The reaction started immediately after the addition of the catalyst, and the maximum conversion was reached after two reactor volumes had passed, whereupon a drop in conversion was observed. It was inferred from the retention of the dendrimer (99.7% in dichloromethane) that the decrease was not caused by dendrimer depletion, and it was therefore ascribed to the... 

When the catalyst is located in the core of a dendrimer, its stability can also be increased by site-isolation effects. Core-functionalized dendritic catalysts supported on a carbosilane backbone were reported by Oosterom et al. 19). A novel route was developed to synthesize dendritic wedges with arylbromide as the focal point. These wedges were divergently coupled to a ferrocenyl diphosphine core to form dppf-like ligands (5). Other core-functionalized phosphine dendritic ligands have also been prepared by the same strategy 20). 

There are reports of numerous examples of dendritic transition metal catalysts incorporating various dendritic backbones functionalized at various locations. Dendritic effects in catalysis include increased or decreased activity, selectivity, and stability. It is clear from the contributions of many research groups that dendrimers are suitable supports for recyclable transition metal catalysts. Separation and/or recycle of the catalysts are possible with these functionalized dendrimers for example, separation results from precipitation of the dendrimer from the product liquid two-phase catalysis allows separation and recycle of the catalyst when the products and catalyst are concentrated in two immiscible liquid phases and immobilization of the dendrimer in an insoluble support (such as crosslinked polystyrene or silica) allows use of a fixed-bed reactor holding the catalyst and excluding it from the product stream. Furthermore, the large size and the globular structure of the dendrimers enable efficient separation by nanofiltration techniques. Nanofiltration can be performed either batch wise or in a continuous-flow membrane reactor (CFMR). 

Siloxanes, prepared in 1989 as representatives of silicon-based dendritic molecules ( silicodendrimers ), were the first dendrimers to contain heteroatoms other than the usual ones (N, O, S, halogens) [68]. As with the phosphodendri-mers (Section 4.1.10), their readily modifiable architecture and their pronounced thermostability hold promise of applications, for example, in the form of carbo-silanes as liquid-crystalline materials and catalyst supports. They can be subdivided into a number of basic types and their properties are presented below with the aid of characteristic representatives ... 

In the dendritic [Co(salen)] complexes prepared by Breinbauer and Jacobsen the dendrimer again serves as - covalent - support material for the catalytic entities attached to the periphery [62]. These dendritic Jacobsen catalysts were obtained by reaction of the corresponding PAMAM dendrimers with active ester derivates of chiral ]Co(II)-(salen)] units according to standard peptide coupling methods. In hydrolytic kinetic resolution of vinylcyclohexane oxide the dendrimer 14 (Fig. 6.40) showed a dramatically increased reactivity compared to the commercially available monomeric Jacobsen catalyst [63-67]. Whereas the latter merely gave a conversion of less than 1% with an indeterminable ee, 14 afforded a conversion of 50% with an ee of 98 2. 

For example, POPAM dendrimers of 1,3-diaminopropane type have been used in membrane reactors as supports for palladium-phosphine complexes serving as catalysts for allylic substitution in a continuously operated chemical membrane reactor. Good recovery of the dendritic catalyst support is of advantage in the case of expensive catalyst components [9]. It is accomplished here by ultra-or nanofiltration (Fig. 8.2). 

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