Ethenolysis of a, b-Unsaturated Ester by NHC-Ruthenium Catalysts

Abstract

Ethenolysis of , - unsaturated ester has a potential as sustainable acrylate producing method. Especially, dimethyl maleate, cheap and abundant source, is one of the attractive substrates of ethenolysis of , - unsaturated ester. However, ethenolysis of electron-deficient alkene is known to challenging reaction and still underexplored. In these reports, report of the The Togni group reports the highest TON (5200) with HG-2 and polyphenol resin on ethenolysis of , - unsaturated ester. However, it is still a low TON to be economically feasible. So, in this thesis, other catalysts developed for ethenolysis (F-ImPy, F-aImPy, AAOC) that have stronger donor ability were tested to increase TON. In contrast to our expectation, all the catalysts show lower TON than HG-2 although the condition optimization and the test of some additives (polyphenol, BHT, PCy3-CuCl). By the results of reaction time optimization experiments, it is presumed that a decomposition of the catalysts is reason for lower TON.