Peroxophosphotungstate held in an ionic liquid brush: an efficient and reusable catalyst for the dihydroxylation of olefins with H2O2 in neat water

Abstract

A reusable heterogeneous catalytic assembly of [PO4{WO(O2)2}4]3− held in an ionic liquid brush was synthesized and an environmentally friendly procedure was developed for the dihydroxylation of several olefins with 30 wt% H2O2. These reactions were conducted in neat water under mild conditions without any organic co‐solvent or other additive. Several factors that affect the dihydroxylation were investigated in detail. The catalyst is easily recovered after the reaction via simple filtration, and can be reused at least eight times without a noticeable loss of activity. The experimental results demonstrate that this dihydroxylation process has no apparent scale‐up effect. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.