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Updated: Jul 10, 2026

Heterogeneous Removal of Water-Soluble Ruthenium Olefin Metathesis Catalyst from Aqueous Media Via Host-Guest Interaction
Published on: August 23, 2018
Energy-gaining formation and catalytic behavior of active structures in a SiO(2)-supported unsaturated Ru complex
Rudy Coquet1, Mizuki Tada, Yasuhiro Iwasawa
1Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Hongo, Tokyo, Japan.
Abstract:
The formation and catalytic behavior of active structures in a SiO(2)-supported unsaturated Ru complex catalyst for alkene epoxidation were studied by means of hybrid density functional theory (DFT) calculations. An energy-gaining route for the catalyst activation was found to allow the formation of active unsaturated Ru complexes and the remarkable alkene epoxidation via an exothermic reaction path between isobutyraldehyde and oxygen. In the proposed Bartlett mechanism, Ru promotes the formation of peracid intermediate and facilitates the intermolecular hydrogen transfer in the peracid intermediate, while alkene molecules do not directly coordinate to the Ru site. It was found that stilbene epoxidation is easier to achieve than ethene epoxidation thanks to the electron donating phenyl groups.
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