Catalytic aziridination and epoxidation of alkenes using modified microporous and mesoporous materials

The immobilisation of enantioselective homogeneous catalysts is described using an approach in which cations are immobilised by ion-exchange within a microporous (zeolite Y) or a mesoporous material (Al-MCM-41). The catalysts are used under nonaqueous conditions so that cation leaching is minimised during the catalytic reaction. The cations can be modified using chiral ligands to form an enantioselective catalyst that is wholly heterogeneous and can be readily reused. Using this approach it is shown that copper-exchanged zeolite Y is a highly active catalyst for the aziridination of alkenes. Modification using bis(oxazolines) leads to the formation of an enantioselective aziridination catalyst. Using a similar approach, manganese-exchanged Al-MCM-41 modified with a chiral salen ligand is found to be an effective enantioselective heterogeneous epoxidation catalyst for cis-stilbene. The approach is also used to show that immobilisation of cobalt-exchanged Al-MCM-41 can also give some activity for the enantio selective epoxidation of cis-stilbene. However, in this case, although only low enantioselection is observed, the immobilised catalyst gives higher enantioselection than the non-immobilised homogeneous catalyst.