Met­al cat­a­lysts have been used for sev­er­al years in chem­i­cal indus­try for bulk man­u­fac­tur­ing. How­ev­er, the use of organometal­lic cat­a­lysts is still com­par­a­tive­ly new and under­de­vel­oped. Research and devel­op­ment has result­ed in mod­i­fi­ca­tion of cer­tain organometal­lic based process­es in var­i­ous indus­tries. These cat­a­lysts and asso­ci­at­ed pro­ce­dures are pri­mar­i­ly used in phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, agro­chem­i­cal and fra­grance pro­duc­tion. Top­ics in Organometal­lic Chem­istry, a book series start­ed by the renowned pub­lish­er, Springer, has a vol­ume ded­i­cat­ed to organometal­lic cat­a­lysts and their use in fine chem­i­cal indus­try. It major­ly focus­es on pal­la­di­um and ruthe­ni­um as two of the most com­mon­ly used cat­a­lysts. Let’s review a few reac­tions cat­alyzed by these organometal­lic cat­a­lysts, in con­text with their indus­tri­al use.

§ Pal­la­di­um cat­alyzed reactions

Pal­la­di­um cat­alyzes C-C cou­pling reac­tions offer­ing cost reduc­tion ben­e­fits. The cat­a­lyst is tol­er­ant to a num­ber of func­tion­al groups, yield­ing no waste dur­ing the process. With pal­la­di­um as a cat­a­lyst, these reac­tions require low­er tem­per­a­tures. A wide range of reac­tions are car­ried out, main­ly for the pro­duc­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal inter­me­di­ates. With­out get­ting into detail of indi­vid­ual reac­tions, we’ll gen­er­al­ly go over a few types of reac­tions. Miro­­zo­­ki-Heck reac­tion : It ary­lates an alkene, in some cas­es, arry­lat­ing allylic alco­hols to final­ly pro­duce a ketone or an alde­hyde. Suzu­ki reac­tion : It is used for pro­duc­tion of biaryl com­pounds from aryl­boron­ic acid and aryl halide deriv­a­tives. This reac­tion is com­mon­ly used for man­u­fac­tur­ing six dif­fer­ent blood pres­sure low­er­ing agents (sar­tans). Kama­­da-Cor­riu reac­tion : Here an alkenyl or aryl Grig­nard is cou­pled with an alkenyl or aryl halide. Negishi reac­tion : It cou­ples an arylz­inc with an alkenyl or aryl halide. While it is a high­ly selec­tive reac­tion, zinc waste is a con­cern. Sono­gashira reac­tion : It cou­ples a ter­mi­nal alkenyl to an alkenyl or aryl halide. These reac­tions often use met­al-phos­phine com­plex­es for effec­tive catal­y­sis.

§ Ruthe­ni­um cat­alyzed reactions

Ruthe­ni­um main­ly cat­alyzes selec­tive hydro­gena­tion reac­tions. These are adopt­ed by the fla­vor and fra­grance indus­try for pro­duc­tion of unsat­u­rat­ed alco­hols to be used as syn­thet­ic inter­me­di­ates or final ingre­di­ents. Ruthe­ni­um offers envi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly reac­tions for selec­tive 1,4-hydrogenation reac­tions of dienes. Ruthe­ni­um com­plex­es are used for this pur­pose. Asym­met­ric hydro­gena­tions Asym­met­ric hydro­gena­tion reac­tions of C=C, C=O and C=N are now being used in indus­tri­al pilot- or bench-scale reac­tions, cat­alyzed by ruthe­ni­um-, rhodi­um- or oth­er met­al com­plex cat­a­lysts. If you’re look­ing for phos­phine lig­ands, homo­ge­neous or het­ero­ge­neous cat­a­lysts for bench scale or indus­tri­al use, then you should browse through our list of cat­a­lysts and lig­ands here. Fol­low­ing three are rou­tine­ly used phos­phine lig­ands in most reactions.  Call now to order or con­tact us online.