Effect of different synthetic routes on the performance of propylene hydroformylation over 3V-PPh3 polymer supported Rh catalysts

This article studied the difference between two 3V-PPh3 polymer (POL-PPh3) supported Rh catalysts synthesized via different synthetic strategies, one-pot and post-synthesis, respectively. The catalytic performance of the two catalysts was further evaluated for the hydroformylation of propylene on a fixed-bed reactor. The catalyst prepared through post-synthesis (Rh/POL-PPh3) showed better catalytic activity compared to the one-pot sample (Rh–POL-PPh3), and exhibited excellent long-term stability. N2 sorption, SEM, EXAFS and FT-IR characterization results suggested that the possible reasons for the different catalytic performance of two catalysts can be ascribed to the fact that part of Rh species was probably embedded into the framework of POL-PPh3 in the Rh–POL-PPh3 catalyst. Moreover, it might restrict the accessibility of reagents to Rh species and block the flexible coordination between Rh species and POL-PPh3. The Rh/POL-PPh3 catalyst synthesized via post-synthesis and the Rh species were uniformly distributed on the surface of POL-PPh3, which might have a positive effect on the improvement of the mass transfer and the flexible coordination of Rh species with POL-PPh3.