Kharasch addition catalyst, nickel dendrimer

An early example of a dendritic catalyst was reported by Knapen et al. 24), who functionalized GO and G1 carbosilane dendrimers with up to 12 NCN pincer-nickel(II) groups (7a) and applied them as catalysts in the Kharasch addition of organic halides to alkenes (Scheme 3). 

For some of them, the use of membrane reactors for their recovery or application in continuously operated reactors has been demonstrated. Examples include the use of dendrimer-bound nickel catalysts for the Kharasch addition [54, 59] and dendritic palladium catalysts for an allylic substitution [73, 60]. The membrane reactor concept has also been transferred to reactions at higher pressure, as shown for the hydrovinylation of styrene (cf. Section 3.3.3) [75]. Modem ultra-and nanofiltration membranes allow an effective recovery of the homogeneously soluble catalyst. However, in some cases the long-term stability of the catalyst under operating conditions has to be improved. 

The first example of a catalytically active metallodendrimer, having catalytic groups at the periphery, was reported by van Koten, van Leeuwen and coworkers [20]. These authors prepared the nickel(II) complexes containing carbosilane dendrimers, which were successfully employed in the homogeneous regioselective Kharasch addition of polyhalogenoalkanes to the terminal C=C double bonds. Since these early studies there has been a steadily increasing number of dendrimer catalysts which have been synthesized and studied [15]. In this section, the details of peripherally modified chiral dendrimer catalysts for different asymmetric catalytic reactions will be summarized. 

In Kharasch addition to acrylic acid ester that is catalyzed by nickel complexes with silicon-containing dendrimers modified with a chelate aryldiamide ligand, the catalyst activity is lower than that of a low molecular weight analogue, van Koten and coworkers assumed that this is due to the small distance between nickel atoms on the dendrimer surface and to the formation of mixed-valence binuclear complexes [114, 126, 127]. 

---