Rhodium-mediated oxygenations and oxidations with dioxygen: isolation of reactive metal intermediates

The project involves the isolation and characterization of highly reactive rhodium intermediates in new oxygenation and oxidation reactions. Unique peroxo, hydroperoxo, silylperoxo and borylperoxo complexes and also binuclear peroxo compounds are stabilized by an electron withdrawing anionic ligand. This stability allows to control the reactivity of the peroxo species and leads to the development of new reaction routes to access a variety of peroxides such as disilylperoxides, diacylperoxides, but also copper or tin peroxo compounds. Reactivity studies on hydroperoxo complexes will lead to the development of new catalytic systems for the oxidation of dihydrogen, alcohols or olefins.