Platinum-silica catalysts effect experiment

The choice of an appropriate support is of no less importance than that of active phase of a catalyst. We have focused our attention on the application of hydrophobic supports to prepare effective platinum catalysts for hydrosilylation since our preliminary experiments have shown that in a number of hydrosilylation reactions hydrophobic material-supported catalysts appeared to be superior to those based on hydrophilic supports such as alumina and silica. We have also aimed at selecting such supports which, in addition to their hydrophobicity, do not have acid centers on their surfaces, and due to this, they do not catalyze undesirable side reactions of isomerization. The supports selected for our study were styrene-divinylbenzene copolymer (SDB) and fluorinated carbon (FC), because nonfunctionalized SDB is free of acid sites and surface acidity of FC is extremely weak (H 9). The performance of SDB- and FC-supported platinum catalysts was studied in several reactions of hydrosilylation. 

---