Effect of Highly Polar Solvents

One of the observed trends in the HTE screening reported in Section 9.2.2 indicated a favorable effect induced by high-polarity solvents [39, 44]. This stimulated the investigation of the synthesis of silsesquioxanes in very polar solvents [45]. 

A new parameter space for the synthesis of silsesquioxane precursors was defined by six different trichlorosilanes (R=cyclohexyl, cyclopentyl, phenyl, methyl, ethyl and tert-butyl) and three highly polar solvents [dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO), water and formamide]. This parameter space was screened as a function of the activity in the epoxidation of 1-octene with tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) [26] displayed by the catalysts obtained after coordination of Ti(OBu)4 to the silsesquioxane structures. Fig. 9.4 shows the relative activities of the titanium silsesquioxanes together with those of the titanium silsesquioxanes obtained from silsesquioxanes synthesised in acetonitrile. The values are normalised to the activity of the complex obtained by reacting Ti(OBu)4 with the pure cyclopentyl silsesquioxane o7b3 [(c-C5H9)7Si7012Ti0C4H9]. 

The highest catalytic activities were found for the titanium complexes obtained from tert-butyl silsesquioxanes synthesised in DM SO and water, with respectively 84% and 74% of the activity of the reference catalyst (c-C5H9)7Si7012Ti0C4H9. [With the experimental conditions employed, (c-C5H9)7Si7012Ti0C4H9 gives complete and selective conversion of TBHP towards the epoxide therefore, the relative activities of the reported catalysts correspond to their TBHP conversions towards 1,2-epoxyoctane.] These two catalysts exhibited almost the same activity as the previous best HTE catalyst (87%) obtained from cyclopentyl silsesquioxanes synthesised in acetonitrile [39, 44, 46] and are the first reported examples of tert-butyl silsesquioxanes as precursors for very active titanium catalysts. Relevant catalytic activities were also obtained with cyclohexyl silsesquioxanes synthesised in DM SO (67%) and with phenyl silsesquioxanes synthesised in H20 (61%). 

Finally, all the methyl and ethyl silsesquioxanes are poor precursor for titanium-based epoxidation catalysts, in agreement with the initial experiments [39, 44]. 

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