Katalytische Eigenschaften von neuen Pyridin-basierenden Ruthenium-Pincer-Komplexen

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Robert Langer
• Subject Area: Inorganic Molecular Chemistry - Synthesis and Characterisation
• Term: from 2010 to 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 166677981

In this project we want to investigate the catalytic properties of pincer ligand stabilized ruthenium complexes towards hydrogenation of carbonyl compounds and dehydrogenative coupling of alcohols with amines or alcohols. The development of "green" environmentally friendly, efficient, and economically attractive processes is one of the most important goals of chemistry. Ideally new reactions with fundamentally new catalytic principals should be developed. The ruthenium pincer complexes described by Milstein et al. show catalytic activity towards a number of novel reactions of great industrial importance, including dehydrogenation of alcohols to form esters and H2, the catalytic coupling of amines with alcohols to produce amides and H2, and the hydrogenation of esters to alcohols under mild conditions. The development of viable methods and new potential applications based on related compounds is very desirable. It is likely that selective modification of the catalyst will result in higher rates and could give mechanistic information about these novel reactions. To extend the scope of these reactions, we envisage to develop a general method for the hydrogenation of carbonyl compounds, which would be an attractive method for the synthesis of high-value compounds. Based on these investigations it is planned to develop catalytic enantioselective processes, which are unprecedented so far. For this purpose new chiral pincer complexes will be synthesized and studied in enantioselective catalysis.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: Israel
• Host: Professor David Milstein, Ph.D.