Novel Aqueous/Organic Biphasic System for Thermoregulated Phase-Transfer Catalysis with Rhodium Nanoparticles

An aqueous/1-pentanol biphasic system was developed for thermoregulated phase-transfer catalysis with rhodium nanoparticles in which thermoregulated ligand Ph2P(CH2CH2O)22CH3-stabilized Rh nanoparticles were used as catalysts for the hydrogenation of olefins. Under the optimized reaction conditions, the conversion of cyclohexene and the yield of cyclohexane were 99%. The catalyst can be easily separated from the product by phase separation and it can be recycled eight times without a loss of activity.