Highly Stable Rhodium Nanoparticles Functionalized by Vinylidene Group: Synthesis, Surface Reaction, and Catalysis

Abstract

Covalent functionalization of nanomaterials in the catalysis have been fascinated by many researchers as one of the solutions to the problems evoked by prohibiting the unnecessary interaction between the catalysts during the reactions. Above all, we focused on the vinylidene ligand, which had been resulted in transformation to other carbon-based ligands which had not been released from the metal fragment in homogeneous catalysis, for the development with catalytic applications of the nanomaterials. In this paper, we successfully synthesized vinylidene functionalized rhodium nanoparticles and characterized them using several tools. Especially, for the confirmation of the vinylidene group on the surface, we showed the NMR study, and surface reaction. After the characterization, we applied the vinylidene functionalized rhodium nanoparticles to the hydroformylation reaction. In the catalytic application, we showed that the rhodium nanoparticles had the excellent activity in the hydroformylation reaction and the nanoparticles is more stable than the nanoparticle using other surfactant or ligand by recycle test. And also, we showed the difference of the catalytic activity according to the vinylidene species.