The bite angle makes the catalyst

Abstract

Catalytic reactions are described for metal complexes containing bidentate phosphine ligands that enforce wide bite angles in the complexes. The calculated natural bite angles are in the range 1001208. Three applications will be discussed: (i) nickel catalysed hydrocyanation, for which the rst active phosphine catalyst was found, (ii) palladium catalysed allylic alkylation, for which the selectivity also strongly depends on the bite angle, and (iii) rhodium catalysed hydroformylation, which leads to highly linear products.