Sulfonated phosphine

Submitted by HAO DING, BARBARA B BUNN, and BRIAN E. HANSON  

Checked by ROBERT W. ECKL, CHRISTIAN W. KOHLPAINTNER, and WOLFGANG A. HERRMANN  

The commercial success of rhodium-trisulfonated triphenylphosphine (TPPTS) catalysts1 has prompted considerable interest in TPPTS and other water-soluble ligands.2 The potential for new applications for the synthesis of both bulk and fine chemicals in water has led to methods for the preparation of a wide variety of sulfonated phosphines including chiral phosphines3 and 

The incorporation of 3-phenylpropylphenyl into a phosphine yields a phosphine that is relatively easy to sulfonate at the phenyl ring omega to phos-phorus. The greater reactivity leads to short sulfonation times, oleum is not required, and oxidation of the phosphine does not occur. 

All manipulations and syntheses were performed under prepurified argon or nitrogen using standard Schlenk techniques. All solvents were degassed by distillation under nitrogen prior to use. 

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When water-miscible ionic liquids are used as solvents, and when the products are partly or totally soluble in these ionic liquids, the addition of polar solvents, such as water, in a separation step after the reaction can make the ionic liquid more hydrophilic and facilitate the separation of the products from the ionic liquid/water mixture (Table 5.3-2, case e). This concept has been developed by Union Carbide for the hydroformylation of higher alkenes catalyzed by Rh-sulfonated phosphine ligand in the N-methylpyrrolidone (NMP)/water system. Thanks to the presence of NMP, the reaction is performed in one homogeneous phase. After the reaction. 

Water-soluble carbonyls are relatively rare. A route to such a species involves reaction at room temperature of the sulfonated phosphine P(PhS03)33- as its water-soluble Na+ salt with Co2(CO)8 in a two-phase water/toluene mixture, whereupon the product forms in the aqueous phase in high yield.85... 

Prochiral imines can be hydrogenated to the corresponding amines with extremely high enan-tioselectivities in H20/ethyl ethanoate biphasic systems, using Rh1 complexes of sulfonated phosphines 342 The cationic rhodium complex [Rh(NBD)(131)]+ was an active catalyst for hydrogenation of 2-ethanamido-propenoic acid in aqueous solution.343... 

Considerable work has been conducted on a water-soluble catalyst using sulfonated phosphine-modified rhodium. Details of this chemistry will be described in Chapter 5. The general concept (Figure 2.3) is to make the catalyst water soluble, then after product formation, decant the product. In order for the water-soluble catalyst to be effective, the alkene must dissolve in the aqueous layer. This has been demonstrated on a commercial basis using propene. The low solubility of higher alkenes in the aqueous catalyst layer has proven problematic. The desirable characteristic of the ligand, water solubility, is needed in the separation step but is a disadvantage in the reaction step. 

Selectivity refers to the fraction of raw material alkene that is converted to product aldehyde, but since hydroformylation typically gives both a linear and branched isomer, selectivity also refers to the relative amounts of each. The linear branched (l b) ratio is highly catalyst dependant. One must simultaneously consider whether the proposed catalyst will give the desired l b selectivity and also whether the proposed catalyst is feasible for use with the catalyst/product separation technologies. For example, water extraction of a polar product, such as in the hydroformylation of allyl alcohol to give 4-hydroxybutanal, would not work well with a sodium salt of a sulfonated phosphine since both are water soluble. 

The problems associated with the in situ approaches can be avoided by using a discrete catalyst. The presumed structure of the monometallic palladium catalyst contains the sulfonated phosphine ligand chelated to the palladium and a palladium-carbon bond (polymer), most probably in cis geometry with respect to the phosphorous (Fig. 8). 

The sulfonated phosphine ligand is chelated to the metal center... 

Water-soluble complexes constitute an important class of rhodium catalysts as they permit hydrogenation using either molecular hydrogen or transfer hydrogenation with formic acid or propan-2-ol. The advantages of these catalysts are that they combine high reactivity and selectivity with an ability to perform the reactions in a biphasic system. This allows the product to be kept separate from the catalyst and allows for an ease of work-up and cost-effective catalyst recycling. The water-soluble Rh-TPPTS catalysts can easily be prepared in situ from the reaction of [RhCl(COD)]2 with the sulfonated phosphine (Fig. 15.4) in water [17]. 

Water-soluble transition-metal complexes have been used recently for transfer hydrogenolysis of halocarbons. Paetzold and Oehme [110] have realized the reductive dehaiogenation of allyl or benzyl halides in the presence of [(phosphine) 2PdCl2] complexes with sulfonated phosphines as ligands (e.g., Ph2P(CH2)3S03K) by... 

Figure 5.6 Some examples of sulfonated phosphine ligands widely used in aqueous-organic biphasic catalysis [19]...

The solubility of these phosphine ligands in water can be extraordinarily high. The sodium salt of the ira-sulfonated triphenylphosphine (tppts) has a solubility in water of 1.1 kg 1 1 [20], Apart from high solubility, these sulfonated phosphines are widely used for several reasons including ... 

In contrast to the free-radical polymerizations, there have been relatively few studies on transition metal catalysed polymerization reactions in water. This is largely due to the fact that the early transition metal catalysts used commercially for the polymerization of olefins tend to be very water-sensitive. However, with the development of late transition metal catalysts for olefin polymerizations, water is beginning to be exploited as a medium for this type of polymerization reaction. For example, cationic Pd(II)-bisphosphine complexes have been found to be active catalysts for olefin-CO copolymerization [21]. Solubility of the catalyst in water is achieved by using a sulfonated phosphine ligand (Figure 10.5) as described in Chapter 5. 

The synthesis of aldehydes via hydroformylation of alkenes is an important industrial process used to produce in the region of 6 million tonnes a year of aldehydes. These compounds are used as intermediates in the manufacture of plasticizers, soaps, detergents and pharmaceutical products [7], While the majority of aldehydes prepared from alkene hydroformylation are done so in organic solvents, some research in 1975 showed that rhodium complexes with sulfonated phosphine ligands immobilized in water were able to hydroformylate propene with virtually complete retention of rhodium in the aqueous phase [8], Since catalyst loss is a major problem in the production of bulk chemicals of this nature, the process was scaled up, culminating in the Ruhrchemie-Rhone-Poulenc process for hydroformylation of propene, initially on a 120000 tonne per year scale [9], The development of this biphasic process represents one of the major transitions since the discovery of the hydroformylation reaction. The key transitions in this field include [10] ... 

Due to these reasons both in the early attempts in academic research and in the first successful industrial process in AOC sulfonated phosphines were used as ligands (TPPMS and TPPTS, respectively). A detailed survey of the sulfonated ligands is contained in Table 1 and in Figures 1-5. 

Table I. Selected examples of sulfonated phosphine ligands for aqueous organometallic catalysis (see Figure 1 for general structure)... 

In a different approach [11] to access pure products, the use of strong oleum (65% SO3) for sulfonation of PPh3 resulted in quantitative formation of TPPTS oxide. This was converted to the ethyl suhbester through the reaction of an intermediate silver sulfonate salt (isolated) with iodoethane. Reduction with SiHCls in toluene/THF afforded tris(3-ethylsulfonatophenyl)phosphine which was finally converted to pure 3 with NaBr in wet acetone. In four steps the overall yield was 40% (for PPhs) which compares fairly with other procedures to obtain pure TPPTS. Since phosphine oxides are readily available from easily formed quaternary phosphonium salts this method potentially allows preparation of a variety of sulfonated phosphines (e.g. (CH3)P(C6H4-3-S03Na)2). 

Nucleophilic phosphinations, Grignard-reactions and catalytic cross-coupling for preparation of sulfonated phosphines... 

Figure 3. Water so[uble sulfonated phosphines (continued)...

In 1975 Kuntz has described that the complexes formed from various rhodium-containing precursors and the sulfonated phosphines, TPPDS (2) or TPPTS (3) were active catalysts of hydroformylafion of propene and 1-hexene [15,33] in aqueous/organic biphasic systems with virtually complete retention of rhodium in the aqueous phase. The development of this fundamental discovery into a large scale industrial operation, known these days as the Ruhrchemie-Rhone Poulenc (RCH-RP) process for hydroformylation of propene, demanded intensive research efforts [21,28]. Tire final result of these is characterized by the data in Table 4.2 in comparison with cobalt- or rhodium-catalyzed processes taking place in homogeneous organic phases. 

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