Synthesis, Characterization, and Application of Oxo-Molybdenum(V)-Corrolato Complexes in Epoxidation Reactions

Sharpless et al. have described, while performing the molybdenum-catalyzed epoxidation reaction of olefins using alkyl hydroperoxides, that the molybdenum-oxo moiety is an active catalytic species. Thus, continuous efforts have been made to synthesize molybdenum-oxo complexes of different ligand environments. While plenty of such works on molybdenum porphyrins are reported in the literature, related molybdenum corroles are very less reported. The synthesis and characterization of two new oxo-molybdenum(V)-corrolato complexes are described herein. Both the complexes have been fully characterized by several spectroscopic techniques in conjunction with single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis. The efficacy of the oxo-molybdenum(V)-corrolato complexes for the catalytic epoxidation reaction of olefins with the help of hydroperoxides has also been explored. The catalytic application of oxo-molybdenum(V)-corrolato complexes in the epoxidation reaction has not been reported earlier. A mechanism has been proposed to explain the experimental findings.