Efficient production of high value added materials via selective hydroformylation

Well-defined tetraphosphine ligand systems based on ferrocene have been developed for the formation of bimetallic complexes capable of activating otherwise unreactive substrates by mutual interactions with functional groups by both metals. To date, most bimetallic complexes have two metal centres in close proximity, often employing bridging ligands or metal-metal (M-M) bonds. Little attention has been paid to the effect of small changes in M-M bond distances of binuclear complexes lacking a M-M bond. We have designed and synthesised a tetraphosphine ligand with bridge length governing the exact M-M distanceto activate conjugated substrates such as butadiene

The first tetraphosphine ligands capable of inducusing a well-defined metal metal distance in bimetallic complexes for acivation of conjugateds dienes has been preprared. In addition new phosphacyclic ligands for monoligated palladium complexes have been prepared which are highly active in palladium catalyzed Heck reactions.