Highly regioselective and active rhodium/bisphosphite catalytic system for isomerization-hydroformylation of 2-Butene

The formation of linear aldehyde from isomerization-hydroformylation of 2-butene represents an important subject and current task in industry. Both high activity and excellent regioselectivity were achieved in the rhodium-catalyzed 2-butene isomerization-hydroformylation with 2,2′- bis(dipyrrolylphosphinooxy)-1,1′-(±)-binaphthyl (1) as ligand. Bulky phosphite with electron-withdrawing pyrrol groups dramatically improved the selectivity of linear product, and a good yield of 90.5% aldehydes was obtained with an excellent linear aldehyde regioselectivity of 95.3% under optimized condition. Graphical Abstract: Bulky phosphite with electron-withdrawing pyrrol groups dramatically improved the selective of linear product, and an excellent yield of 90.5% aldehydes with 95.3% regioselectivity of linear aldehyde was obtained in the Rh-catalyzed isomerization- hydroformylation of 2-butene in the presence of ligand 1.[Figure not available: see fulltext.]