Porphyrins inert ruthenium

Nitrous oxide is produced as a byproduct in multimillion Ib/year quantities in nylon manufacture worldwide. Currently, there is a great interest toward the utilization of NjO due to the environmentally hazardous nature of this gas with respect to the greenhouse effect and ozone layer depletion. In addition to their ability to utilize dioxygen for catalytic hydrocarbon oxidations, ruthenium porphyrins have been shown to activate nitrous oxide which is an extremely inert molecule and a poor ligand. Groves and Roman have found that N O reacted with Ru"(TMP)(THF)2 in toluene to produce Ru (TMP)(0)2 . trans-dioxoRu(VI) complex can in turn epoxidize a suitable substrate such as tra/js-p-methyl styrene. This system was subsequently shown to be catalytic under appropriate conditions . 

A general common feature for all the ruthenium-mediated multi-porphyrin systems described above is that the newly formed Ru- N(pyridyl) bonds are both stable and inert and, as a consequence, the corresponding adducts are very robust. 

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