Water-soluble dicationic palladium

Water-soluble dicationic palladium(II) complexes [(R.2P(CH2)3PR.2)Pd-(NCMe)2][BF4]2 proved to be highly active in the carbon monox-ide/ethene copolymerization under biphasic conditions (water-toluene). In the presence of an emulsifier and methanol as activator, the catalytic activity increased by a factor of about three. Also higher olefins could be successfully incorporated into the copolymerization with CO and the terpolymerization with ethene and CO.184... 

In order to keep the mild conditions, hydroxycarbonylation has been performed in biphasic media, maintaining the catalyst in the aqueous phase thanks to water-soluble mono- or diphosphine ligands. In the presence of the sodium salt of trisulfonated triphenylphosphine (TPPTS), palladium was shown to carbonylate efficiently acrylic ester [19], propene and light alkenes [20,21] in acidic media. For heavy alkenes the reduced activity due to the mass transfer problems between the aqueous and organic phases can be overcome by introducing an inverse phase transfer agent, and particularly dimeihyl-/-i-cyclodextrin [22,23]. Moreover, a dicationic palladium center coordinated by the bidentate diphosphine ligand 2,7-bis(sulfonato)xantphos (Fig. 2) catalyzes, in the presence of tolylsulfonic acid for stability reasons, the hydroxycarbonylation of ethylene, propene and styrene and provides a ca. 0.34 0.66 molar ratio for the two linear and branched acids [24],... 

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