Sustainable selective oxidations in confined spaces

Sustainable production can be achieved by designing catalysts for specific reactions. By optimising catalysts, we can achieve maximum selectivity and yield. This is tricky, especially in oxidative chemistry, where the right type of oxidant must be found and the chance of over-oxidation is always present. The design of oxidation catalysts is the metaphorical red thread running throughout my thesis. Chapter 2 shows the selective oxidation of cyclohexene and the different reaction pathways are discussed, and how the surface and active site interact with each other and affect the selective oxidation of cyclohexene. The third chapter discloses a novel synthesis of phthalocyanine, a catalyst related to haem, capable of performing oxidative chemistry. The single atom catalyst gives optimum use of the metal, and the ligand around it is suitable for industrial conditions. The synthesis procedure described in chapter 3 is then applied in chapter 4. Here, the catalyst building blocks are designed into a polymer, through a mix & match approach. We can easily change metal, active site distance and environmental effects in this catalyst, and therefor control the confinement of the metal in the reaction. Finally, in the fifth chapter we apply the knowledge that we gained on synthesis and design of catalysts to a new related problem. This is the synthesis and design of zeolites, a different type of confinement catalyst. The purpose here is to see if the approach we have developed over the previous chapters is translatable to new type of materials.