posted on 2015-08-24, 00:00authored byJaroslaw Mormul, Michael Mulzer, Tobias Rosendahl, Frank Rominger, Michael Limbach, Peter Hofmann
Several phosphine and phosphite ligands
were tested in the hydroformylation
of 4-pentenal to adipic aldehyde, a versatile starting material for
industrially very relevant compounds. By varying the ligand structure
we were able to increase the selectivity toward adipic aldehyde to
>95%. Additionally, two molecular structures of important catalytic
intermediates [(bisphosphite)RhH(CO)2] and one structure
of a previously unknown catalyst decomposition product were obtained.