Salen-based coordination polymers of manganese and the rare-earth elements: synthesis and catalytic aerobic epoxidation of olefins.

Treatment of N,N'-bis(4carboxysalicylidene)ethylenediamine (H(4)L), with MnCl(2)⋅(H(2)O)(4), and Ln(NO(3))(3)⋅(H(2)O)(m) (Ln = Nd, Eu, Gd, Dy, Tb), in the presence of N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF)/pyridine at elevated temperature resulted (after work up) in the formation of 1D coordination polymers {[Ln(2)(MnLCl)(2)(NO(3))(2)(dmf)(5)]⋅4 DMF}(n) (1-5). In these coordination polymers the rare earth ions are connected through carboxylate groups from Mn-salen units in a 1D chain structure. Thus, the Mn-salen complex acts as a "metalloligand" with open coordination sites. All compounds were used as catalysts in the liquid-phase epoxidation of trans-stilbene with molecular oxygen, which resulted in the formation of stilbene oxide. Since the choice of the lanthanide had virtually no influence on the performance of the catalyst, only the manganese-gadolinium was studied in detail. The influence of solvent, catalyst concentration, reaction temperature, oxidant, and oxidant flow rate on conversion, yield, and selectivity was analyzed. A conversion of up to 70%, the formation of 61% stilbene oxide (88% selectivity), and a TON of 84 were observed after 24 h. A hot filtration test confirmed that the reaction is mainly catalyzed through a heterogeneous pathway, although a minor contribution of homogeneous species could not be completely excluded. The catalyst could be reused without significant loss of activity.