Organometallic Chemistry Inside the Pore Walls of Mesostructured Silica Materials

Abstract

Covalently imprisoned within pore walls of mesostructured porous silica, organophosphanyl transition-metal complexes (Z, see picture) are still able to effect heterogeneous hydrogenation catalysis. The key to the synthetic protocol that leads to the well-defined metal sites lies in silylation of the material prior to extraction of the surfactant template. TEOS=tetraethylorthosilicate.