Highly crosslinked polycyclooctyl-salen cobalt (iii) for the hydrolytic kinetic resolution of terminal epoxides

A new support structure for Co(iii)salen catalysts has been developed to improve the kinetics for the hydrolytic kinetic resolution (HKR) of terminal epoxides. The new support consists of a copolymer composed of crosslinked salen-containing cyclic oligomers. Previous studies show that higher molecular weight cyclic oligomers are more active HKR catalysts than lower weight oligomers. The crosslinking reaction forms high molecular weight oligomers using a similar support structure and in significantly greater synthetic yield making the presented protocol synthetically more viable.