Water biphasic system catalysis

Fig. 10.9 Enzyme catalysis in ILs/water biphasic system (Reproduced from Ref. [23], with kind permission of The American Chemical Society)...

Several modifications of the water-soluble catalysts using co-solvents (cf. Section 4.3 and [14]), micelle forming reagents (Section 4.5 and [15]), super-critical C02-water biphasic system (cf. Section 7.4 and [16]), SAPC (Section 4.7 and [17]), and catalyst binding ligands (interfacial catalysis) [18, 24] have been proposed to overcome the lower rates observed in biphasic catalysis due to poor solubilites of reactants in water. So far endeavors were centered on innovating novel catalyst and development of the existing systems. However, limited information is available on the kinetics of biphasic hydroformylation. 

Ni(0) complexes of TPPTS have been employed as catalysts for the hydrocyanation of dienes and unsaturated nitriles. Product linearity and catalyst lifetimes can be improved if the catalysis is performed in a xylene/water biphasic system by using TPPTS as co-catalyst [33]. The Ni(0)/TPPTS complexes employed may be obtained by electrochemical reduction of Ni(CN)2 in water in presence of TPPTS [34]. 

The carbon dioxide/water biphasic system is an example of binary mixtures consisting of components with widely separated critical temperatures. The critical properties of the pure compounds are given in Table 1. The typical phase diagram for such mixtures can be complex, including the possibility for areas of three-phase coexistence (LEV). For applications in biphasic catalysis, however, the key parameters to be discussed are solubility and cross-contamination, mass transfer, and chemical changes. 

Biocatalysis localization in the biphasic medium depends on physicochemical properties of the reactants. When all the chemical species involved in the reaction are hydro-phobic, catalysis occurs at the liquid-liquid interface. However, when the substrate is hydrophobic (initially dissolved in the apolar phase) and the product is hydrophilic (remains in the aqueous phase), the reaction occurs in the aqueous phase [25]. The majority of biphasic systems use sparingly water-soluble substrates and yield hydrophobic products therefore, the aqueous phase serves as a biocatalyst container [34,35] [Fig. 2(a)]. Nevertheless, in some systems, one of the reactants (substrate or product) can be soluble in the aqueous phase [23,36-38] (Fig. 2(b), (c)). 

Another solution to the problem of catalyst/product separation is the biphasic catalysis. The liquid biphasic catalysis became an attractive technology for potential commercial application of enantioselective homogeneous catalysis. The most important features of such systems are related to the fact that both reaction rate and e.s. may be influenced by the number of ionic groups in water-soluble ligand or by addition of surfactants. Descriptions of water-soluble ligands and the recent results in the rapidly progressing area of biphasic enantioselective catalysis are available in recent reviews [255,256],... 

Water is particularly suitable for use in biphasic catalysis. It readily separates from organic solvents because of its polarity, density and because of the hydrophobic effect. Water will form biphasic systems with fluorous solvents, some ionic liquids, many volatile organic solvents, and also with scCC>2 [18],... 

Another environmental issue is the use of organic solvents. The use of chlorinated hydrocarbons, for example, has been severely curtailed. In fact, so many of the solvents favored by organic chemists are now on the black list that the whole question of solvents requires rethinking. The best solvent is no solvent, and if a solvent (diluent) is needed, then water has a lot to recommend it. This provides a golden opportunity for biocatalysis, since the replacement of classic chemical methods in organic solvents by enzymatic procedures in water at ambient temperature and pressure can provide substantial environmental and economic benefits. Similarly, there is a marked trend toward the application of organometal-lic catalysis in aqueous biphasic systems and other nonconventional media, such as fluorous biphasic, supercritical carbon dioxide and ionic liquids. ... 

In many cases only one of the enantiomers displays the desired biological effect, the other is ineffective or even harmful. The development of enantioselective catalysis in non-aqueous solvents has been closely followed by the studies of similar aqueous systems - logically, attempts were made in order to solubilize the ligands and catalysts in aqueous media. Using aqueous/organic biphasic systems (often water/ethyl acetate) one may have a possibility of recovery and recycle of the often elaborate and expensive catalysts. However, with a few exceptions, up till now catalyst recovery has been rather a desire than a subject of intensive studies, obviously because of the lack of large-scale synthetic processes. 

Until there is a sufficient excess of ethene over [PdH(TPPTS)3] their fast reaction ensures that aU palladium is found in form of tratts-[Pd C(CO)Et (TPPTS)2]. However, at low olefin concentrations (e.g. in biphasic systems with less water-soluble olefins) [PdH(TPPTS)3] can accumulate and through its equihbrium with [Pd(TPPTS)3] (eq. 5.5) can be reduced to metallic palladium. This is why the hydroxycarbonylation of olefins proceeds optimally in the presence of Brpnsted acid cocatalyts with a weekly coordinating anion. Under optimised conditions hydrocarboxylation of propene was catalyzed by PdC + TPPTS with a TOE = 2507 h and l = 57/43 (120 °C, 50 bar CO, [P]/[Pd] = 4, P-CH3C6H4SO3H) [38], In neutral or basic solutions, or in the presence of strongly coordinatmg anions the initial hydride complex cannot be formed, furthermore, the fourth coordination site in the alkyl- and acylpaUadium intermediates may be strongly occupied, therefore no catalysis takes place. 

Examples of applying biphasic systems to catalyzed reactions, such as phase-transfer catalysis, overpower the stoichiometric reactions. In a typical catalytic biphasic system, one phase contains the catalyst, while the other phase contains the substrate. In some systems, the catalyst and substrates are in the same phase, while the product produced is transferred to the second phase. In a typical reaction, when the two phases are mixed during the reaction and after completion, the catalyst remains in one phase ready for recycling while the product can be isolated from the second phase. The most common solvent combination consists of an organic solvent combined with another immiscible solvent that, in most applications, is water. However, there are few examples of suitable water-soluble and stable catalysts, and therefore various applications are limited to some extent [192]. Immiscible solvents other than water are recently becoming more applicable in biphasic catalysis because of the better solubility and stability of various catalysts in such solvents. For example, ionic liquids and fluorous solvents have many successful applications in liquid-liquid... 

The best solvent is no solvent and if a solvent (diluent) is needed then water is preferred [100]. Water is non-toxic, non-inflammable, abundantly available and inexpensive. Moreover, owing to its highly polar character one can expect novel reactivities and selectivities for organometallic catalysis in water. Furthermore, this provides an opportunity to overcome a serious shortcoming of homogeneous catalysts, namely the cumbersome recovery and recycling of the catalyst. Thus, performing the reaction in an aqueous biphasic system, whereby the... 

Water has several attractive features as a solvent and, as we have said elsewhere, the best solvent is no solvent, but if one has to use a solvent then let it be water. Water is the most abundant molecule on the planet and is, hence, readily available and inexpensive. It is nonflammable and incombustible and odorless and colorless (making contamination easy to spot). It has a high thermal conductivity, heat capacity and heat of evaporation, which means that exothermic reactions can be controlled effectively. It readily separates from organic solvents owing to its polarity, density and because of the hydrophobic effect [12], which makes it eminently suitable for biphasic catalysis. Indeed, water forms biphasic systems with many organic solvents, with fluorous solvents, some ionic liquids and with scC02 [13]. 

What about when the substrate and product are water soluble The problem of catalyst recovery in this case can be solved by employing inverse aqueous bi-phasic catalysis. An example is the hydroformylation of N-allylacetamide in an aqueous biphasic system in which the catalyst is dissolved in the organic phase and the substrate and product remain in the water phase. This formed the basis for an elegant synthesis of the natural product, melatonin, in which the aqueous solution of the hydroformylation product was used in the next step without work-up (Fig. 7.6) [32]. 

Li D, Dunlap JR, Zhao B (2008) Thermosensitive water-dispersible hairy particle-supported Pd nanoparticles for catalysis of hydrogenation in an aqueous/organic biphasic system. Langmuir 24 5911-5918... 

Not surprisingly, the most well developed biphasic system is that using water and organic solvents, despite the first industrial biphasic process involving only organic solvents. Obviously, water is the solvent of choice as it is abundant, cheap, non-flammable, non-toxic and has many other desirable properties such as being polar (and therefore relatively easy to separate from apolar compounds), high thermal conductivity, heat capacity and heat of evaporation. Nevertheless, alternative solvents to water for applications in biphasic catalysis are needed for several reasons ... 

Ideally, biphasic catalysis is performed in such a way that mass-transfer from one phase to the other does not restrict the rate of the reaction. An elegant solution to overcome this potential limitation is reversible two phase-single phase reaction conditions. An example of a temperature-controlled reversible ionic liquid-water partitioning system has been demonstrated for the hydrogenation of 2-butyne-l,4-diol, see Figure 3.2.1251... 

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