Billions of pounds of alkyl and alkenyl arenes are produced annually as important raw materials for plastics, elastomers, pharmaceuticals and fine chemicals. Current methods for the large-scale production of alkyl and alkenyl arenes involve Friedel–Crafts alkylation or zeolite catalysis. These acid catalyzed methods require multiple steps including a trans-alkylation process that converts polyalkylated arene products to monoalkylated arenes. An alternative method for the production of alkenyl arenes is a transition metal-mediated single-stage oxidative olefin hydroarylation. For example, Rh complexes have been demonstrated to serve as catalyst precursors for the direct oxidative conversion of arenes and olefins to alkenyl arenes. This presentation will focus on new studies that reveal the observed induction period using molecular Rh catalyst precursors for styrene production is due to the initial formation of catalytically inactive insoluble Rh material. The formation of insoluble Rh is followed by Rh leaching to form the catalytically active molecular Rh species.

Study of Rh catalysts for the single-step oxidative alkenylation of benzene

2019 Spring National Meeting

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