Dendrimers in catalysis

One of the first results on the use of phosphine dendrimers in catalysis was reported by Dubois and co-workers [16]. They prepared dendritic architectures containing phosphorus branching points which can also serve as binding sites for metal salts. These terdentate phosphine-based dendrimers were used to incorporate cationic Pd centers in the presence of PPh3. Such cationic metalloden-dritic compounds were successfully applied as catalysts for the electrochemical reduction of C02 to CO (e.g. 9, Scheme 9) with reaction rates and selectivities comparable to those found for analogous monomeric palladium-phosphine model complexes suggesting that this catalysis did not involve cooperative effects of the different metal sites. 

One of the earliest reports on the use of dendrimers in catalysis is the unimolecu-lar decarboxylation of 6-nitro-benzisoxazole-3-carboxylate in the presence of a dendrimer comprising ether dendrons which are functionalized at their periphery with tetra-alkylammonium cations (e.g. 20, Scheme 21) [30]. In aqueous media, the quaternary ammonium groupings promote the reactivity of organic anions which presumably bind in high concentration to the polycationic periphery of the dendrimer. The latter species enhances the rate of the bimolecular hydrolysis of p-nitrophenyl diphenyl phosphate catalyzed by o-iodosobenzoate ion. 

Dendritic polymers can be covalently functionalized with organometallic complexes to obtain a dendritic catalyst with molecularly defined catalytic sites [5-7]. Moreover, a considerable number of reports on the applicability of functionalized dendrimers in catalysis have led to the idea of a dendritic effect on the catalyst activity/selectivity, which can either be positive or... 

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