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Updated: Dec 27, 2025

Heterogeneous Removal of Water-Soluble Ruthenium Olefin Metathesis Catalyst from Aqueous Media Via Host-Guest Interaction
Published on: August 23, 2018
Hydration of nitriles using a metal-ligand cooperative ruthenium pincer catalyst
Beibei Guo1, Johannes G de Vries2, Edwin Otten1
1Stratingh Institute for Chemistry , University of Groningen , Nijenborgh 4 , 9747 AG Groningen , The Netherlands .
Abstract:
Nitrile hydration provides access to amides that are important structural elements in organic chemistry. Here we report catalytic nitrile hydration using ruthenium catalysts based on a pincer scaffold with a dearomatized pyridine backbone. These complexes catalyze the nucleophilic addition of H2O to a wide variety of aliphatic and (hetero)aromatic nitriles in BuOH as solvent. Reactions occur under mild conditions (room temperature) in the absence of additives. A mechanism for nitrile hydration is proposed that is initiated by metal-ligand cooperative binding of the nitrile.
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