Reactivity of Metal Ions Bound to Water-Soluble Polymers

The intent of this work is to determine the effectiveness of catalysts covalently bound to polymers and to understand the consequences of supporting the catalysts on catalyst efficiency and selectivity. Rhodium phosphine complexes with functional groups for coupling to polymers were prepared. These catalyst precursors were characterized using standard techniques including IR, NMR, and elemental analysis. Studies on the modified catalysts showed that they were still active hydrogenation catalysts. However, tethering of the catalysts to polyamines gave systems with low hydrogenation activity. Analogous biphasic systems were also explored. Phosphine ligands with a surfactant-like structure have been synthesized and used to prepare catalytically active complexes of palladium. The palladium complexes were utilized in Heck-type coupling reactions (e.g. coupling of iodobenzene and ethyl acrylate to produce ethyl cinnamate) under vigorously stirred biphasic reaction conditions, and were found to offer superior performance over a standard water-soluble palladium catalyst under analogous conditions