Insight into decomposition of formic acid to syngas required for Rh-catalyzed hydroformylation of olefins

Abstract

Formic acid (FA) is one kind of important bulk chemicals, which is recognized as a sustainable and eco-friendly energy carrier to transport H2 via dehydrogenation or CO via decarbonylation. Expectantly, FA upon decomposition into H2 and CO could be used as the syngas alternative for hydroformylation. In this paper, the behaviors of FA to release H2 as well as CO following the distinct pathways were carefully investigated for the first time, and then established a new hydroformylation protocol free of syngas. It was found that the atmospheric hydroformylation of olefins with formic acid (FA) as syngas alternative was smoothly fulfilled over Xantphos (L1) modified Rh-catalyst under mild conditions (80 °C, Rh concentration 1 mol %, 14 h), resulting in >90% conversion of the olefins along with the high selectivity to the target aldehydes (>93%). By using FA as syngas source, the side-reaction of olefin-hydrogenation was greatly depressed. The in situ FT-IR and the high-pressure 1H NMR spectroscopic analyses were applied to reveal how FA behaves dually as CO surrogate and hydrogen source over L1-Rh(acac)(CO)2 catalytic system, based on which the deeply insight into the catalytic mechanism of hydroformylation of olefins with FA as syngas alternative was offered.