Using Soluble Polymers to Enforce Catalyst-Phase-Selective Solubility and as Antileaching Agents to Facilitate Homogeneous Catalysis

The enforced phase-selective solubility of polyisobutylene (PIB)-bound Rh-II catalysts in biphasic heptane/acetonitrile mixtures can be used not only to recycle these catalysts but also to minimize bimolecular reactions with ethyl diazoacetate. When cyclopropanation and O-H insertion reactions are carried out with PIB-bound Rh-II catalysts either with or without addition of an unfunctionalized hydrocarbon polymer cosolvent, dimer by-product formation is suppressed even without slow syringe pump addition of the ethyl diazoacetate. This suppression of by-product formation is shown to be due to increased phase segregation of the soluble polymer-bound catalyst and the ethyl diazoacetate reactant. These studies also reveal that added hydrocarbon polymer cosolvents can function as antileaching agents, decreasing the already small amount of a soluble polymer-bound species that leaches into a polar phase in a biphasic mixture during a liquid/liquid separation step.