Rhodium complexes catalyst, hydrogenation

Hsu et al. [15] applied a bimetallic catalyst comprising rhodium and ruthenium for the hydrogenation to combine the high selectivity of the rhodium complex with the lower cost of the ruthenium complex. When the amount of each metal is identical, the catalytic activity of the bimetallic complex catalyst system was similar to that of the single rhodium-complex catalyst, containing... 

One of the success stories of transition metal catalysis is the rhodium-complex-catalyzed hydrogenation reaction. Asymmetric hydrogenation with a rhodium catalyst has been commercialized for the production of L-Dopa, and in 2001 the inventor, Knowles, together with Noyori and Sharpless, was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry. After the initial invention, (enantioselective) hydrogenation has been subject to intensive investigations (27). In general, hydrogenation reactions proceed... 

With a rhodium complex catalyst containing a chiral ligand dispersed in [BMIM]SbFg, the enantioselective hydrogenation of a-acetamidocinnamic acid to (5)-phenylalanine was achieved with 64% enantiomeric excess 112). [RuCl2( S)-BINAP]2 NEt3 in [BMIM]BF4 for (5)-naproxen synthesis gave 80% ee from 2-(6-methoxy-2-naphthyl) acrylic acid and isopropyl alcohol 214). 

Monohydrides play an important role in the following rhodium-complex-catalyzed hydrogenations in aqueous media. The catalyst precursor is [RhCl(PTA)3], which gives the catalytically active species (HRh(PTA)3] formed by dehydrochlorination of the primary product of H2 oxidative addition (88). The complex is an active catalyst for several reactants, e.g., olefinic and oxo adds, allyl alcohol, and sulfostyrene. 

Other examples are now recognized where a mononuclear compound that is catalytically active under homogenous conditions at one temperature can also act as a source of a highly active nanoparticulate metal catalyst at higher temperature. This was recently demonstrated for a rhodium complex in hydrogenation reactions [C. M. Hagen, J. A. Widegren, P. M. Maitlis and R. G. Finke, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2005, 127, 4423]. 

FIGURE 27 Self-assembly of diphosphine catalyst for asymmetric rhodium-complex-catalyzed hydrogenation the catalyst contains titanium as the assembly metal (96). (For a color version of this figure, the reader is referred to the Web version of this chapter.)... 

Liquid phase carbonylation of methanol to acetic acid with a rhodium complex catalyst is a well known process (ref. 1). The authors have found that group 8 metals supported on carbonaceous materials exhibit excellent activity for the vapor phase carbonylation of methanol in the presence of iodide promoter(ref. 5). Especially, a nickel on active carbon catalyst gave acetic acid and methyl acetate with the selectivity of 95% or higher at 100% methanol conversion under 10 atm and 250 °C. In the present study it has been found that a small amount of hydrogen which is always contained in the commercially available CO and requires much cost for being removed completely, accelerates greatly the carbonylation reaction. 

The present interest in asymmetric catalysis was demonstrated by awarding Nobel prizes to three winners W. S. Knowles (USA) for elaboration of rhodium complex catalysts effective in asymmetric synthesis of anti-Parkinson medicine, R. Noyori (Japan) for elaboration of a new catalytic system based on chiral ruthenium-phosphine complex catalysts that are very effective in hydrogenation reactions, and B. Sharpless (USA) for elaboration of epoxidation and other reactions under the action of chiral titanium complexes. 

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