Synthesis of catalytically active polymer‐bound Schiff base manganese complexes for selective epoxidation of unfunctionalized olefins

Abstract

A polymerizable unsymmetric tetradentate Schiff base with one vinyl group 3 was synthesized and copolymerized with styrene in toluene. Mn(III) ion was quantitatively incorporated into the copolymers by the functional moieties. The resulting linear polymer-bound manganese complexes (4a′ and 4b′) were used as catalyst under homogeneous condition for selective epoxidation of unfunctionalized olefins (i.e. styrene, α-methylstyrene and cyclohexene) at room temperature in the presence of iodosylbenzene (PhIO) as the terminal oxidant. The efficacy of epoxidation using the polymeric catalysts was comparable to that of the monomolecular analog. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci A: Polym Chem 35: 3249–3254, 1997