Synthesis of carbon monolith with bimodal meso/macroscopic pore structure and its application in asymmetric catalysis

Carbon monolith with bimodal meso/macroporous pore structures was synthesized by the nanocasting method, using corresponding monolith silica as templates. The pore system of this material was characterized by instrumental analysis. The adjacent macropores are interconnected through uniform-sized windows, and the walls of macrospheres consist of mesostructured pores. Chiral Co(III)-(BF(3)) salen immobilized on a meso/macroporous carbon monolith can be applied as an effective heterogeneous catalyst for an asymmetric reaction such as a hydrolytic kinetic reaction of terminal epoxides. The catalysts were prepared with different loading amounts of aluminium chloride to anchor the active salen complex, and the catalytic activity increased with increasing amount of aluminum chloride on the surfaces, showing up to 99 ee% of the product epichlorohydrin (ECH). (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.