Chiral supramolecular ligands in transition metal catalysis

In this thesis we explore various supramolecular strategies in transition metal catalysis and demonstrate that new promising catalytic systems can be easily generated with this approach. For example, supramolecular interactions can be used to change the coordination mode of a monodentate ligand in a rhodium-hydroformylation catalyst, providing a new tool to control the activity and selectivity of a transition metal catalyst. Furthermore, bidentate ligands amendable via a supramolecular strategy, has proven to be an efficient approach to influence key catalytic features, such as activity and selectivity, in the rhodium-catalysed asymmetric hydrogenation and hydroformylation reactions, by just variation of the steric and electronic properties of the Zn building blocks. In addition, it is demonstrated that supramolecular-based catalytic systems could reach similar or even superior performances compared to classic homogeneous catalysts, proving the strength and potential of such multicomponent catalyst assemblies. Therefore, we foresee that these supramolecular strategies for catalyst preparation will be important for future applications in discovering new active systems for homogeneous catalysis solutions.