Ruthenium dusters

Homs and co-workers described the linkage of ethene and C02 on a supported platinum/tin complex yielding 3-hydroxypropionic acid [73], Another approach to utilizing C02 was pursued by Tominaga and Sasaki, namely hydroformylation with C02 [74]. 1-Hexene, for instance, reads with a mixture of C02 and H2 in the presence of ruthenium dusters giving heptanals, heptanols, and, in small amounts, the undesired hexane as a result of simple hydrogenation. Mechanistically it is assumed that a retro water gas shift reaction occurs, in which CO and H20 are formed from C02 and H2. This carbon monoxide undergoes ordinary hydroformylation with the alkene and H2. 

Highly soluble cationic ruthenium-dusters complexes have also been used for hydrogenation of aromatic substrates [31]. Compared with water these ionic liquids dissolve higher concentration of hydrogen gas which leads to increased reaction rate in biphasic conditions. 

The hydrogenation of alkynes is a very interesting reaction, since the selectivity toward the partially or the fully reduced product allows the in-situ comparison of the ability of a catalyst to reduce C=C versus C=C bonds. This is perhaps the area in which duster catalysis has been most extensively developed, as recently reviewed by Cabeza [27], Adams and Captain [4], and Dyson [28]. A good number of metal clusters have been employed as catalyst precursors in alkyne hydrogenation, the majority of them containing ruthenium. 

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