Greener and Sustainable Approach for the Synthesis of Commercially Important Epoxide Building Blocks Using Polymer-Supported Mo(VI) Complexes as Catalysts

This chapter presents a greener alkene epoxidation process using a molybdenum (Mo)- based heterogeneous catalyst and tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) as an oxidant. It analyses TBHP as the terminal oxidant for all the epoxidation experiments. The chapter discusses the preparation and charactertzation of an efficient and selective polystyrene 2-(aminomethyl)pyridine-supported molybdenum complex and a polybenzimidazole-supported molybdenum complex (PBI.Mo), which have been used as catalysts for epoxidation of 1-hexene and 4-Vinyl-1-cyclohexene using TBHP as an oxidant. It presents the catalyst loading defined based on the active Mo content instead of the total mass of the polymer-supported catalysts in order to take into account the slight differences in Mo loading that could arise from different batches of the prepared catalysts. The Ps.AMP.Mo catalyst demonstrates better catalytic performance for epoxidation of 1-hexene and 4-VCH as compared to the PBI.Mo catalyst. Both catalysts have demonstrated higher catalytic performance in the continuous epoxidation of 4-VCH as compared to 1-hexene.