Polymer-bound rhodium hydroformylation catalysts

Homogeneous catalysts are superior in activity, selectivity as well as specificity, but heterogeneous catalyst are often preferred in industrial processes, because of their good recoverability and their applicability in continuous flow reactors. It would be of great environmental, commercial and scientific interest to combine the advantages of both catalysts. A route to achieve this goal is to immobilize a potent homogeneous catalyst onto an insoluble resin. In this thesis we have used soluble linear polymers to bind rhodium catalysts. To apply the polymer bound catalysts in a continuous flow reactor the polymers were grafted on insoluble silica sphere (diameter 12 nm