Ruthenium complex catalysts selectivity

It has been shown previously how water-soluble rhodium Rh-TPPTS catalysts allow for efficient aldehyde reduction, although chemoselectivity favors the olefmic bond in the case of unsaturated aldehydes [17]. The analogous ruthenium complex shows selectivity towards the unsaturated alcohol in the case of crotonaldehyde and cinnamaldehyde [31]. 

Hydride ion transfer from formic acid and its salts finds widespread application in the reduction of organic substrates, but limited use has been made of the procedure under phase-transfer catalytic conditions. However in the presence of a ruthenium complex catalyst, it is possible to selectively reduce the C=C bonds of conjugated ketones with sodium formate [11], The rate of reduction is fastest with tetrahexyl-ammonium hydrogensulphate and Aliquat the complete reduction of chalcone being effected within one hour, whereas with benzyltriethylammonium chloride only ca. 15% reduction is observed after two hours under similar conditions. 

The selective hydrogenation of a,/3-unsaturated aldehydes to give the corresponding unsaturated alcohols [Eq. (9)] was investigated with the ruthenium complex catalysts, initially present as [Ru(H)(Cl)(tppts)3] or [Ru(H)2(tppts)4] (91). 

The hydroformylation reaction or 0x0 process is an important industrial synthetic tool. Starting from an alkene and using syngas, aldehydes with one or more carbon atoms are obtained. In almost all industrial processes for the hydroformylation of alkenes, rhodium or cobalt complexes are used as catalysts [33]. A number of studies on ruthenium complex-catalyzed hydroformylation have been reported [34]. One of the reasons for the extensive studies on ruthenium complex catalysts is that, although the rhodium catalysts used in industry are highly active, they are very expensive, and hence the development of a less-expensive catalytic system is required. Since inexpensive ruthenium catalysts can achieve high selectivity for desired u-alde-hydes or n-alcohols, if the catalytic activity can be improved to be comparable with that of rhodium catalysts, it is possible that a ruthenium-catalyzed 0x0 process would be realized. 

The selective cleavage of carbon-carbon bonds in sugars can be achieved under relatively mild hydrogenolytic conditions using a ruthenium complex catalyst thus, besides D-mannitol and D-glucitol, D-fructose yielded up to 30% of glycerol. ... 

Hydrogenation of olefinic unsaturation using ruthenium (Ru) catalyst is well known. It has been widely used for NBR hydrogenation. Various complexes of Ru has been developed as a practical alternative of Rh complexes since the cost of Ru is one-thirtieth of Rh. However, they are slightly inferior in activity and selectivity when compared with Rh catalyst. 

The (5 )-selective DKR of alcohols with subtilisin was also possible in ionic liquid at room temperature (Table 14). " In this case, the cymene-ruthenium complex 3 was used as the racemization catalyst. In general, the optical purities of (5 )-esters were lower than those of (R)-esters described in Table 5. 

In 2008, Grisi et al. reported three ruthenium complexes 65-67 bearing chiral, symmetrical monodentate NHC ligands with two iV-(S)-phenylethyl side chains [74] (Fig. 3.26). Three different types of backbones were incorporated into the AT-heterocyclic moiety of the ligands. When achiral triene 57 was treated with catalysts 65-67 under identical reaction conditions, a dramatic difference was observed. As expected, the absence of backbone chirality in complex 65 makes it completely inefficient for inducing enantioselectivity in the formation of 58. Similarly, the mismatched chiral backbone framework of complex 66 was not able to promote asymmetric RCM of 57. In contrast, appreciable albeit low selectivity (33% ee) was observed when the backbone possessed anti stereochemistry. 

Manufacture of ruthenium precatalysts for asymmetric hydrogenation. The technology in-licensed from the JST for the asymmetric reduction of ketones originally employed BINAP as the diphosphine and an expensive diamine, DAIPEN." Owing to the presence of several patents surrounding ruthenium complexes of BINAP and Xylyl-BINAP, [HexaPHEMP-RuCl2-diamine] and [PhanePHOS-RuCl2-diamine] were introduced as alternative catalyst systems in which a cheaper diamine is used. Compared to the BINAP-based systems both of these can offer superior performance in terms of activity and selectivity and have been used in commercial manufacture of chiral alcohols on multi-100 Kg scales. 

Cationic ruthenium complexes of the type [Cp Ru(MeCN)3]PF6 have been shown to provide unique selectivities for inter- and intramolecular reactions that are difficult to reconcile with previously proposed mechanistic routes.29-31 These observations led to a computational study and a new mechanistic proposal based on concerted oxidative addition and alkyne insertion to a stable ruthenacyclopropene intermediate.32 This proposal seems to best explain the unique selectivities. A similar mechanism in the context of C-H activation has recently been proposed from a computational study of a related ruthenium(ll) catalyst.33... 

The use of water-soluble ligands was referred to previously for both ruthenium and rhodium complexes. As in the case of ruthenium complexes, the use of an aqueous biphasic system leads to a clear enhancement of selectivity towards the unsaturated alcohol [34]. Among the series of systems tested, the most convenient catalysts were obtained from mixtures of OsCl3 3H20 with TPPMS (or better still TPPTS) as they are easily prepared and provide reasonable activities and modest selectivities. As with their ruthenium and rhodium analogues, the main advantage is the ease of catalyst recycling with no loss of activity or selectivity. However, the ruthenium-based catalysts are far superior. 

Mononuclear ruthenium complexes were found to be superior to carbonyl clusters during a comprehensive comparison of a variety of catalysts in the reduction of acetone [49]. Without solvent, most catalysts were highly selective, although the activity was quite low. The addition of water to the system vastly increased yields, in agreement with Schrock and Osborrfs observations into rhodium-catalyzed hydrogenations (Table 15.9) [41],... 

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... 

Unfunctionalized alkenes have posed more of a problem, as they have no polar moiety which can coordinate to the catalyst. Such an additional metal binding site next to the C = C bond has proven to be crucial for directing coordination to the catalyst and, therefore, rhodium and ruthenium complexes, which are highly selective for functionalized alkenes, generally provide only low enan-tioselectivity for this class of substrates. 

Cyclizations of dihydroxystilbene 256 using 4 mol % of chiral ruthenium complexes under photolytic conditions were investigated by Katsuki et al. (Scheme 65) [167]. Coordination of alcohols/phenols to Ru(IV) species generates a cation radical with concomitant reduction of metal to Ru(III). Cycli-zation of this oxygen radical followed by another cyclization provides the product 257. Catalyst 259 provided 81% ee of the product in chlorobenzene solvent. Optimization of the solvent polarity led to a mixture of toluene and f-butanol in 2 3 ratio as the ideal solvent. Substituents on the phenyl rings led to a decrease in selectivity. Low yields were due to the by-product 258. 

In 2002, Kiindig et al. [23, 24] developed catalytic DCR between diaryl nitrones and a,(3-unsaturated aldehydes in the presence of Binop-F iron and ruthenium complexes as chiral Lewis-acid catalysts (Scheme 6). The corresponding cycloadducts were obtained in good yields with complete endo selectivity and up to 94% ee. The isoxazolidine products were obtained as a mixture of regioi-somers in molar ratios varying from 96 4 to 15 85. Experimental and computational data show that the regioselectivity correlates directly with the electronic properties of the nitrone. 

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