New Roles for Soluble Polymers in Homogeneous Catalysis

Texas A&M Research Foundation, College Station TX

Investigators

Abstract

Professor David E. Bergbreiter, of the Department of Chemistry at Texas A&M University, is supported by the Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry Program for his studies of new roles for soluble polymers in homogeneous catalysis. By designing polymer supports with tunable solubility, Professor Bergbreiter will develop schemes permitting the facile separation, recovery, and reuse of the polymer-bound catalysts for various metal-catalyzed reactions, including the Heck reaction, Suzuki coupling, and alkene isomerization. Polyvalent interpolymer hydrogen-bonding will be examined as an approach to the formation of insoluble, recoverable polymer gels. The conditions for minimal interpolymer interaction of two different supported catalysts or metal complexes will be defined by variable temperature 31P NMR spectroscopy, studies which will also provide insight into intrapolymer complexation. The results of these studies, coupled with the solubility control afforded by soluble polymers, will be used to develop new combinatorial approaches to catalyst testing. While soluble catalysts offer many advantages over their insoluble counterparts, they are often difficult to separate from the desired products of their reactions, a problem with regards to both contamination of the products and difficulty in recovery or reuse of the catalyst. By exploring polymeric supports for catalysts which are soluble under desired reaction conditions but are rendered insoluble or easily separable under appropriate conditions by their detailed structures, and with the support of the Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry Program, Professor David E. Bergbreiter, of the Department of Chemistry at Texas A&M University, is developing schemes permitting the facile separation, recovery, and reuse of polymer-bound catalysts for a variety of metal-catalyzed reactions.