Rhodium and Iridium Catalysts

Hydrogenation of substrates having a polar multiple C-heteroatom bond such as ketones or aldehydes has attracted significant attention because the alcohols obtained by this hydrogenation are important building blocks. Usually ruthenium, rhodium, and iridium catalysts are used in these reactions [32-36]. Nowadays, it is expected that an iron catalyst is becoming an alternative material to these precious-metal catalysts. 

Allenes, while arguably underused in synthesis as a whole, have become popular functionalities in cycloisomerization chemistry and provide access to a wide variety of products. Ruthenium, cobalt, platinum, palladium, rhodium, and iridium catalysts are efficient in the transition metal-catalyzed Alder-ene reactions of allenes. 

Extensive investigations in our laboratories on the deactivation of rhodium and iridium catalysts has shown there to be a number of different mechanisms involved. Both, rhodium and iridium catalysts are generally less stable at higher temperatures, and have more labile ligands than their ruthenium counterparts. All of the catalysts are affected by pH, but the ruthenium catalysts seem to be more readily deactivated by acid. Indeed, these reactions are often quenched with acetic acid, whilst stronger acids are used to quench the rhodium reactions. Each of the catalysts can be deactivated by product inhibition, the ruthenium catalyst with aromatic substrates such as phenylethanol, and the rhodium and iridium ones by bidentate chelating products. 

A key feature of the mechanism of Wilkinson s catalyst is that catalysis begins with reaction of the solvated catalyst, RhCl(PPh3)2S (S=solvent), and H2 to form a solvated dihydride Rh(H)2Cl(PPh3)2S [1], In a subsequent step the alkene binds to the catalyst and then is transformed into product via migratory insertion and reductive elimination steps. Schrock and Osborn investigated solvated cationic complexes [M(PR3)2S2]+ (M=Rh, Ir and S= solvent) that are closely related to Wilkinson s catalyst. Similarly to Wilkinson s catalyst, the mechanistic sequence proposed by Schrock and Osborn features initial reaction of the catalyst with H2 followed by reaction of the dihydride with alkene for the case of monophosphine-ligated rhodium and iridium catalysts [12-17]. Such mechanisms commonly are characterized... 

Other methods for the preparation of acetic acid are partial oxidation of butane, oxidation of ethanal -obtained from Wacker oxidation of ethene-, biooxidation of ethanol for food applications, and we may add the same carbonylation reaction carried out with a cobalt catalyst or an iridium catalyst. The rhodium and iridium catalysts have several distinct advantages over the cobalt catalyst they are much fester and fer more selective. In process terms the higher rate is translated into much lower pressures (the cobalt catalyst is operated by BASF at pressures of 700 bar). For years now the Monsanto process (now owned by BP) has been the most attractive route for the preparation of acetic acid, but in recent years the iridium-based CATTVA process, developed by BP, has come on stream. 

When desired vinylidene-mediated pathways are not sufficiently favorable. Group 9 metal catalysts can access a set of typical side-reaction pathways. Alkyne dimerization to give conjugated enynes or higher oligomers is often observed. Polysubstituted benzenes resulting from [2 + 2 + 2] alkyne cyclotrimerization are also common coproducts. Fortunately, the selectivity of rhodium and iridium catalysts can often be modulated by the variation of spectator ligands. 

Erivanskaya and co-workers also studied the dehydrocyclization of 2-n-butylnaphthalene over supported palladium, rhodium, and iridium catalysts (56-55). Palladium-alumina showed the lowest C6-dehydrocyclization activity, but was the most active for the C5-dehydrocyclization of 2-n-butyl-naphthalene. A later study showed, however, that this enhanced activity was due to the high chlorine content of the palladium-alumina catalyst and not to some mysterious inherent catalytic activity of palladium (56). 

In the past, this field has been dominated by ruthenium, rhodium and iridium catalysts with extraordinary activities and furthermore superior enantioselectivities however, some investigations were carried out with iron catalysts. Early efforts were reported on the successful use of hydridocarbonyliron complexes HFcm(CO) as reducing reagent for a, P-unsaturated carbonyl compounds, dienes and C=N double bonds, albeit complexes were used in stoichiometric amounts [7]. The first catalytic approach was presented by Marko et al. on the reduction of acetone in the presence of Fe3(CO)12 or Fe(CO)5 [8]. In this reaction, the hydrogen is delivered by water under more drastic reaction conditions (100 bar, 100 °C). Addition of NEt3 as co-catalyst was necessary to obtain reasonable yields. The authors assumed a reaction of Fe(CO)5 with hydroxide ions to yield H Fe(CO)4 with liberation of carbon dioxide since basic conditions are present and exclude the formation of molecular hydrogen via the water gas shift reaction. H Fe(CO)4 is believed to be the active catalyst, which transfers the hydride to the acceptor. The catalyst presented displayed activity in the reduction of several ketones and aldehydes (Scheme 4.1) [9]. 

Recent mechanistic studies on transition metal-catalysed hydrogen transfer reactions have been reviewed. Experimental and theoretical studies showed that hydrogen transfer reactions proceed through different pathways. For transition metals, hydridic routes are the most common. Within the hydridic family there are two main groups the monohydride and dihydride routes. Experimentally, it was found that whereas rhodium and iridium catalysts favour the monohydride route, the mechanism for ruthenium catalysts proceeds by either pathway, depending on the ligands. A direct hydrogen transfer mechanism has been proposed for Meerwein-Ponndorf-Verley (MPV) reductions.352... 

The hydroboration of stilbenes and related disubstituted alkenes catalysed by QUINAP complexes may proceed with high enantio- and regio-selectivity [(48) (49)] rhodium and iridium catalysts give the same regioisomer but opposite enantiomers.58... 

All sol-gel derived catalysts were stable under reaction conditions, except the rhodium and iridium catalysts, whose colour changed significantly during reaction. The catalysts could easily be separated from the reaction mixture by simple filtration. The filtrated liquid product, that flew out colourless, exhibited no further catalytic activity. GC analysis of the liquid phase indicated the production of dmf with 100% selectivity in all cases, except for the platinum containing catalyst (Table 1). 

The catalytic asymmetric hydroboration reaction can also be applied to OTei o-bicyclic hydrazines. The resulting alcohols are of great synthetic interest and can lead to cyclopentanic diamino alcohols with good enantiomeric purity (equation 14). Interestingly, a reversal of enantioselectivity is observed between reactions employing rhodium and iridium catalysts. ... 

A homogeneous catalytic solution to the alcohol inhibition problem (see the discussion under Uncatalyzed chain reactions of the oxidation of alcohol intermediates, above) does not appear to have been found. However, the presence of a heterogeneous oxidative dehydrogenation catalyst has been reported to be effective in the direct oxidation of alcohols to carbonyls and acids [109, 110]. The mechanism probably involves preliminaiy heterogeneous (oxidative) dehydrogenation of carbinols to carbonyls. If the carbonyl is an aldehyde, it is readily converted to the acid. Platinum, palladium, ruthenium, rhodium, and iridium catalysts, supported on carbon, are reported to be active and selective catalysts for the purpose [109]. Promoters such as cobalt and cadmium have been reported to be effective additives. 

As for other coordination polymerizations, the utilization of water as a reaction medium raises issues such as catalyst stability towards water, and miscibihty of the monomers, polymers and the catalyst with water. Concerning the catalyst stability towards water, to date polymerizations of alkynes in aqueous systems have only been reported with rhodium and iridium catalysts. Unfortunately, the mechanism of polymerization with these complexes in non-aqueous, organic reaction media has not been completely elucidated (vide supra). 

More recent work on the hydrogenation of thiophenic molecules catalyzed by water-soluble metal complexes is pursuing the use of polyphosphine ligands (cf. Section 3.2.2). These studies follow the success obtained with the tridentate phosphine MeC (CH2PPh2)3 (TRIPHOS), which forms rhodium and iridium catalysts for the hydrogenation, hydrogenolysis, and desulfurization of various thiophenic... 

Stereoselective thymol hydrogenation comparative study of charcoal-supported, platinum, rhodium and iridium catalysts... 

Rhodium and iridium catalysts incorporating bisphosphine ligands such as BINAP and derivatives have also been shown to be effective in the asymmetric Pauson—Khand reaction of 1,6-enynes, and some high ees have been obtained with substrates incorporating heteroatoms. As an example, the allylpropargylamine (8.243) is converted into the bicychc product (8.244) with high ee in the presence of an iridium/ToIBINAP catalyst. It has been shown that, in some cases, aldehydes... 

Smith and Marder reported the dehydrogenative borylation of arenes, yielding arylboronates, with pinacolborane in the presence of rhodium and iridium catalysts such as Cp Rh(7/ -C6Me6), CpIrPMes, and [RhClP( Pr)3]2N2 (eq 22). Toluene and other methyl substituted arenes react with pinacolborane in the presence of [RhClP(Tr)3]2N2 and furnish benzylboronates via benzylic C-H activation and dehydrogenative borylation (eq 23). 

Machado AS, Oleskta- A, Castillon S, Lukacs G (1985) Hydroxy group directed hydrogenation with rhodium and iridium catalysts. Synthesis of protected chiral carbocyclic analog of daunosamine. J Chem Soc Chem Commim 530-532... 

The vast majority of methods are based on the use of palladium complexes as catalysts, although copper, ruthenium, rhodium and iridium catalysts have also been used. Progress in the understanding of the mechanisms of these reactions has only been made during the past few years. As comprehensive reviews have been recently published on aryl-aryl bond-formation reactions, covering both mechanistic and synthetic aspects of these reactions [3-7], in this chapter we wiU summarize only those mechanishc studies on metal-catalyzed arylation reactions that have been carried out in detail. 

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