2016-12-2, Andérez-Fernández, María, Vogt, Lydia K., Fischer, Steffen, Zhou, Wei, Jiao, Haijun, Garbe, Marcel, Elangovan, Saravanakumar, Junge, Kathrin, Junge, Henrik, Ludwig, Ralf, Beller, Matthias

For the first time, structurally defined manganese pincer complexes catalyze the dehydrogenation of aqueous methanol to hydrogen and carbon dioxide, which is a transformation of interest with regard to the implementation of a hydrogen and methanol economy. Excellent long-term stability was demonstrated for the Mn-PNPiPr catalyst, as a turnover of more than 20 000 was reached. In addition to methanol, other important hydrogen carriers were also successfully dehydrogenated.

2017-4-21, van Putten, Robbert, Uslamin, Evgeny A., Garbe, Marcel, Liu, Chong, Gonzalez-de-Castro, Angela, Lutz, Martin, Junge, Kathrin, Hensen, Emiel J. M., Beller, Matthias, Lefort, Laurent, Pidko, Evgeny A.

Catalytic hydrogenation of carboxylic acid esters is essential for the green production of pharmaceuticals, fragrances, and fine chemicals. Herein, we report the efficient hydrogenation of esters with manganese catalysts based on simple bidentate aminophosphine ligands. Monoligated Mn PN complexes are particularly active for the conversion of esters into the corresponding alcohols at Mn concentrations as low as 0.2 mol % in the presence of sub-stoichiometric amounts of KOtBu base.