Water transfer hydrogenation

Pd-C, ROH, HCO2NH4, hydrazine or sodium hypophosphite, 42-91% yield. 2-Benzylaminopyridine and benzyladenine were stable to these reaction conditions. Lower yields occurred because of the water solubility of the product, thus hampering isolation. Cyclohexene can be used as a hydrogen source in the transfer hydrogenation. ... 

In the sixth chapter the activation of O-H bonds of water, alcohols and carboxylic acids, and their addition to multiple bonds is reported. Since the formally oxidative addition of ROH gives rise to hydrido(hydroxo) complexes, [MH(OR)Ln] which are postulated as intermediates in many important reactions (water gas shift reaction, Wacker-chemistry, catalytic transfer hydrogenations etc.) the authors of this chapter,... 

The use of chiral ruthenium catalysts can hydrogenate ketones asymmetrically in water. The introduction of surfactants into a water-soluble Ru(II)-catalyzed asymmetric transfer hydrogenation of ketones led to an increase of the catalytic activity and reusability compared to the catalytic systems without surfactants.8 Water-soluble chiral ruthenium complexes with a (i-cyclodextrin unit can catalyze the reduction of aliphatic ketones with high enantiomeric excess and in good-to-excellent yields in the presence of sodium formate (Eq. 8.3).9 The high level of enantioselectivity observed was attributed to the preorganization of the substrates in the hydrophobic cavity of (t-cyclodextrin. 

Most drug-like molecules dissolved in water form hydrogen bonds with the solvent. When such a molecule transfers from water into a phospholipid bilayer, the solute-water hydrogen bonds are broken (desolvation), as new solute-lipid H bonds form in the lipid phase. The free-energy difference between the two states of solvation has direct impact on the ability of the molecules to cross biological barriers. 

Application of this system in the continuous transfer-hydrogenation reaction of acetophenone gave a stable conversion of about 87%, an ee of 94%, and a space-time yield of 255 g L"1 d"1. A continuous dosage of isopropoxide was necessary in order to compensate for deactivation caused by traces of water in the feed stream. Under these circumstances a TTON of 2360 was reached. Comparison of this system with an enzymatic process showed that both approaches offer different advantages and are therefore complementary. 

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]. 

The water-soluble ligand (TPPTS) was discussed earlier with regard to aldehyde reduction [17]. Similarly, in ketone transfer hydrogenation, high yields are obtained for a variety of substrates with the ability for efficient catalyst recycling at no expense of activity or selectivity (Fig. 15.10). 

Transition-metal catalysts are, in general, more active than the MPVO catalysts in the reduction of ketones via hydrogen transfer. Especially, upon the introduction of a small amount of base into the reaction mixture, TOFs of transition-metal catalysts are typically five- to 10-fold higher than those of MPVO catalysts (see Table 20.7, MPVO catalysts entries 1-20, transition-metal catalysts entries 21-53). The transition-metal catalysts are less sensitive to moisture than MPVO catalysts. Transition metal-catalyzed reactions are frequently carried out in 2-propanol/water mixtures. Successful transition-metal catalysts for transfer hydrogenations are based not only on iridium, rhodium or ruthenium ions but also on nickel [93], rhenium [94] and osmium [95]. It has been reported that... 

The standard ruthenium arene and CATHy catalysts are insoluble in water, but are nevertheless stable in the presence of water. Reactions in the I PA system can be carried out in mixtures of isopropanol and water the net effect is a lower rate due to dilution of the hydrogen donor. The use of formate salts in water, with CATHy or other transfer hydrogenation catalysts dissolved in a second immiscible phase was shown to work well with a number of substrates and in some cases to improved reaction rates [34]. The use of water as reaction solvent will be discussed in more detail in Section 35.5. 

The TEAF system can be used to reduce ketones, certain alkenes and imines. With regard to the latter substrate, during our studies it was realized that 5 2 TEAF in some solvents was sufficiently acidic to protonate the imine (p K, ca. 6 in water). Iminium salts are much more reactive than imines due to inductive effects (cf. the Stacker reaction), and it was thus considered likely that an iminium salt was being reduced to an ammonium salt [54]. This explains why imines are not reduced in the IPA system which is neutral, and not acidic. When an iminium salt was pre-prepared by mixing equal amounts of an imine and acid, and used in the IPA system, the iminium was reduced, albeit with lower rate and moderate enantioselectivity. Quaternary iminium salts were also reduced to tertiary amines. Nevertheless, as other kinetic studies have indicated a pre-equilibrium with imine, it is possible that the proton formally sits on the catalyst and the iminium is formed during the catalytic cycle. It is, of course, possible that the mechanism of imine transfer hydrogenation is different to that of ketone reduction, and a metal-coordinated imine may be involved [55]. 

Whereas most hydrogenation catalysts function very well in water (see for example Chapter 38 for two-phase aqueous catalysis), scattered instances are known of inhibition by water. Laue et al. attached Noyori s transfer hydrogenation catalyst to a soluble polymer and used this in a continuous device in which the catalyst was separated from the product by a membrane. The catalyst was found to be inhibited by the presence of traces of water in the feed stream, though this could be reversed by continuously feeding a small amount of potassium isopropoxide [60]. A case of water inhibition in iridium-catalyzed hydrogenation is described in Section 44.6.2. 

In general, cydohexenones fail to give optically active products under phase-transfer, hydrogen peroxide, benzylquininium chloride, and basic reaction conditions (77). In fact, it appears that the starting material decomposes, since only water-soluble products are formed. Of several cydohexenones tried, only one, namely 4,4-diphenylcyclohexenone, furnished an optically active epoxide. 

CQDs can be efficient chromophores for photon harvesting and photoconversion [55] and it was shown that photogenerated electrons could be transferred to gold or platinum nanoparticles for the photocatalytic conversion of carbon dioxide and splitting of water for hydrogen generation [55,56], In both cases, CQDs similar to titania... 

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