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Updated: Nov 9, 2025

HKUST-1 as a Heterogeneous Catalyst for the Synthesis of Vanillin
Published on: July 23, 2016
Porous Organic Phenanthroline-Based Polymer as an Efficient Transition-Metal-Free Heterogeneous Catalyst for Direct
Yongquan Tang1, Fang Chen1, Sai Wang1
1Department of Chemistry, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310028, P. R. China.
Abstract:
Direct C-H bond transformation has been regarded as one of the most important areas in organic synthesis in both academia and industry. However, the heterogeneous transition-metal-free catalysis of direct C-H bond transformation has remained a contemporary challenge. To tackle this challenge, we designed and constructed a porous phenanthroline-based polymer (namely POP-Phen) via free radical polymerization of vinyl-functionalized phenanthroline monomers. POP-Phen shows excellent catalytic performances in transition-metal-free catalyzed C-H arylation, even better than those of the corresponding homogeneous catalyst, which is mainly attributed to the high density of catalytically active sites in the heterogeneous catalyst. Kinetic isotope experiments and spectral characterizations demonstrate the electron-transfer between the heterogeneous catalyst and the base (t-BuOK), a key step for C-H activation. We believe that this porous organic phenanthroline polymer could open a new door for the design of novel heterogeneous transition-metal-free catalysts for direct C-H activation.
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