Metal cluster catalysts hydrogenation

This chapter reviews the literature involving well-defined molecular metal clusters as hydrogenation catalysts or catalyst precursors, with particular emphasis being placed on those systems that are likely to involve only or predominantly cluster intermediates throughout the hydrogenation cycle. The mechanisms in cases where cluster catalysis is strongly supported by experimental evidence are discussed in more detail. 

Carbon Monoxide Reduction and the Water Gas Shift Reaction A review of the role of metal cluster catalysts in solution and attached to supports for CO hydrogenation is optimistic about the use of cluster-derived heterogeneous catalysts on industrial processes.Selective reduction of CO to methanol occurs on Pt cathodes coated with K2Fe2(CN)6 in methanol solutions containing Fe(III) or Cr(III) complexes. 

A metal cluster can be considered as a polynuclear compound which contains at least one metal-metal bond. A better definition of cluster catalysis is a reaction in which at least one site of the cluster molecule is mechanistically necessary. Theoretically, homogeneous clusters should be capable of multiple-site catalysis. Many heterogeneous catalytic reactions require multiple-site catalysis and for these reasons discrete molecular metal clusters are often proposed as models of metal surfaces in the processes of chemisorption and catalysis. The use of carbonyl clusters as catalysts for hydrogenation reactions has been the subject of a number of papers, an important question actually being whether the cluster itself is the species responsible for the hydrogenation. Often the cluster is recovered from the catalytic reaction, or is the only species spectroscopically observed under catalytic conditions. These data have been taken as evidence for cluster catalysis. 

In addition to these homometallic (rhodium) clusters, several hetero-metallic clusters of the type [M M CO o]2, where M and M1 are each different metals selected from the Co, Rh, Ir triad (jc = 1-11), have been described and claimed to be useful catalysts in the reaction between carbon monoxide and hydrogen to produce oxygenated products (68, 69). These complexes can be prepared from the heterometallic dodecacar-bonyl complexes, [MuM (CO)12] (M, M1 = Co, Rh, or Ir y = 1-3), by simply mixing the appropriate dodecacarbonyl species in THF under nitrogen and then adding water (70). They can be isolated by adding a suitable cation e.g., Al3+, Mg2+, Ca2+, etc. 

Some general reviews on hydrogenation using transition metal complexes that have appeared within the last five years are listed (4-7), as well as general reviews on asymmetric hydrogenation (8-10) and some dealing specifically with chiral rhodium-phosphine catalysts (11-13). The topic of catalysis by supported transition metal complexes has also been well reviewed (6, 14-29), and reviews on molecular metal cluster systems, that include aspects of catalytic hydrogenations, have appeared (30-34). 

A search for alternative energy supplies has triggered efforts to develop efficient homogeneous catalysts for Fischer-Tropsch-type syntheses via hydrogenation of carbon monoxide, a likely future key material available, for example, through oxidation of coal (33, 327, 328, 417, 418). Metal cluster systems have been used in attempts to emulate the presently used heterogeneous catalysts. The important reactions are methanation,... 

Homogeneous catalysts have now been reported for hydrogenation of carbon monoxide, a combustion product of coal (see Section VI,B). More effective catalysts will undoubtedly be discovered in the near future. Polynuclear or, at least, binuclear sites are favored for reduction of the triple bond in carbon monoxide (see Section VI,B), and this together with the popular parallelism to heterogeneous systems, has renewed interest in metal clusters as catalysts (see Section VI). A nickel cluster is the first catalyst reported for mild (and selective) hydrogenation of the triple bond in isocyanide (see Section VI,A). The use of carbon monoxide and water as an alternative hydrogen source is reattracting interest (see Section VI,C). 

Much emphasis has been placed in recent times on easily recoverable liquid bi-phasic catalysts, including metal clusters in nonconventional solvents. For instance, aqueous solutions of the complexes [Ru3(CO)12.x(TPPTS)x] (x=l, 2, 3 TPPTS = triphenylphosphine-trisulfonate, P(m-C6H4S03Na)3) catalyze the hydrogenation of simple alkenes (1-octene, cyclohexene, styrene) at 60°C and 60 bar H2 at TOF up to 500 h 1 [24], while [Ru i(CO)C (TPPMS) >,] (TPPMS = triphenylphos-phine-monosulfonate, PPh2(m-C6H4S03Na) is an efficient catalyst precursor for the aqueous hydrogenation of the C=C bond of acrylic acid (TOF 780 h 1 at 40 °C and 3 bar H2) and other activated alkenes [25]. The same catalysts proved to be poorly active in room temperature ionic liquids such as [bmim][BF4] (bmim= Tbutyl-3-methylimidazolium). No details about the active species involved are known at this point. 

The hydrogenation of alkynes is a very interesting reaction, since the selectivity toward the partially or the fully reduced product allows the in-situ comparison of the ability of a catalyst to reduce C=C versus C=C bonds. This is perhaps the area in which duster catalysis has been most extensively developed, as recently reviewed by Cabeza [27], Adams and Captain [4], and Dyson [28]. A good number of metal clusters have been employed as catalyst precursors in alkyne hydrogenation, the majority of them containing ruthenium. 

H. Bonnemann, W. Brijoux, R. Brinkmann, E. Dinjus, T. Jouben, R. Fretzen, and B. Korall, Highly dispersed metal clusters and colloids for the preparation of active liquid-phase hydrogenation catalysts, J. Mol. Catal. 74,323-333 (1992). 

Catalysts prepared from iridium neutral binary carbonyl compounds and several supports have been studied extensively. Small Ir (x = 4, 6) clusters supported on several oxides and caged in zeolite, and their characterization by EXAFS, have been prepared [159, 179, 180, 194-196]. The nuclearity of the resulting metallic clusters has been related with their catalytic behavior in olefin hydrogenation reactions [197]. This reaction is structure insensitive, which means that the rate of the reac-hon does not depend on the size of the metallic particle. Usually, the metallic parhcles are larger than 1 nm and consequently they have bulk-like metallic behavior. However, if the size of the particles is small enough to lose their bulk-like metallic behavior, the rate of the catalytic reaction can depend on the size of the metal cluster frame used as catalyst. 

Clusters, as possible catalytic reactors, are perfectly dispersed in solutions. They are thus suitable systems for observing, under quasi-homogeneous conditions by time-resolved techniques, the kinetics of catalyzed electron transfer, which would be inaccessible on a solid catalyst. It was demonstrated that the reaction of radiation-induced free radicals COT and (CH3)2COH catalyzed by metal clusters started by the storage of electrons on clusters as charge pools and that electrons were then transferred pairwise to water-producing molecular hydrogen [22,75]. 

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