Rhodium-catalyzed hydrogenation industrial applications

Optically active aldehydes are important precursors for biologically active compounds, and much effort has been applied to their asymmetric synthesis. Asymmetric hydroformylation has attracted much attention as a potential route to enantiomerically pure aldehyde because this method starts from inexpensive olefins and synthesis gas (CO/H2). Although rhodium-catalyzed hydrogenation has been one of the most important applications of homogeneous catalysis in industry, rhodium-mediated hydroformylation has also been extensively studied as a route to aldehydes. 

These reports announced the rapid development of a large variety of monodentate ligands for rhodium-catalyzed enantioselective hydrogenation. It was shown that the substrate scope for catalysts based on monodentate ligands is most probably at least as big as for their bidentate counterparts. Also, initial doubts about the activity and stability of the monodentate ligand-catalysts have been taken away. Several reports show that substrate catalyst ratios (SCRs) of 103 or higher, essential for industrial application, are possible. In addition, reaction rates are in the studied cases comparable to those reached by catalysts based on state-of-the-art bidentate ligands [16]. 

The hydrogenations catalyzed by rhodium/24a are not fast at 1 bar pressure. However, at 5 bar in a well-stirred autoclave TOFs of 200-600 h 1 were reached, which is quite satisfactory even for industrial applications. Even faster reactions can be induced by further increasing the pressure. At elevated pressures the amount of catalyst can be substantially reduced to 0.01-0.1mol%. In all these hydrogenations, the enantioselectivity was not affected in any way by pressures up to 60 bar, in contrast to the deterioration of ee that occurs with increase of pressure when using bisphoshines.31... 

As early as 1938, Roelen discovered the cobalt-catalyzed hydroformylation of olefins, then known as the oxo reaction, which allowed the synthesis of aldehydes by addition of carbon monoxide and hydrogen to alkenes. Not long after this discovery it was found that cobalt, rhodium, ruthenium and platinum are also suitable as catalysts. However, because of the considerable price advantage for large scale applications in industry, cobalt catalysts are mostly used. Rhodium complexes, however, are... 

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