Catalytic decarbonylation in Ionic Liquids

INTRODUCTION With the repletion of the fossil resources and the increasing goblal demand for a more green chemistry industry, the devolopment of new and improved catalityc systems for the conversion of renewable feedstocks, as biomass, are needed. A possiblity of a greener chemical industry may be achieved by switching from enviromentally challenging solvents to more benign ones such as ionic liquids. METHOD The thesis concerns with the decarbonylation of 2-Naphthaldehyde and p-Toluenaldehyde in various Ionic Liquids (IL's) and their effect as solvent compared to the previous reported diglyme reaction which is shown in the figure 2. The catalyst used for this experiment is the [Rh (dppp)2] Cl. CONCLUSION Here we demostrate the utilization of different ionic liquids as solvent for decarbonilation of aldehydes. The reaction presented in figure 1, provides a pathway for the conversion of aldehydes into decarbonylated molecules, which is a process that until now has shown low yields and poor selectivity. Recent studies have shown that the Group 9 metals are by far the most active metals for the catalityc decarbonytalion reactions, and that the rate determinating step is the decarbonylation of the metal complex. This knowledge presents an interesting opportunity for the selection of active catalyst-solvent combinations.