Water-soluble complexes of tertiary phosphines and rhodium(I) as homogeneous catalysts

TLDR: In this article, the authors report the development of coupling reactions which permit the facile conversion of (bis(2-diphenylphosphinoeth-yl)amine (l lz's) to a wide variety of water-soluble diphosphines.

Abstract: Sir: The low solubility of common phosphine-transition metal complexes in water has inhibited their application to catalytic transformations in aqueous solutions. Recent experiments have established that complexes derived from Ph2P(m-C6Ha-SO3Na)2 are catalytically active in homogeneous olefin hy-drogenation and hydroformylation reactions in water.3 s Complexes derived from bidentate ligands can have useful differences in chemical stability and catalytic activity from analogous complexes containing only monodentate ligands.6 Here we report the development of coupling reactions which permit the facile conversion of (bis(2-diphenylphosphinoeth-yl)amine (l lz's to a wide variety of water-soluble diphosphines