R. Geitner, B. Weckhuysen
Mar 2, 2020
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Journal
Chemistry
Abstract
Paraformaldehyde is an easy-to-handle chemical for the in-situ generation of formaldehyde and is therefore often used in chemistry, structural biology or medicine. We have investigated the depolymerization process of paraformaldehyde at different temperatures for the application as C1 surrogate in "CO-free" carbonylation reactions using in-situ Raman spectroscopy. Rather surprisingly, it was found that small amounts of commonly applied carbonylation catalysts slow down the depolymerization process significantly. By applying 1 H-, 17 O- and 31 P-NMR spectroscopy coupled with density functional theory (DFT) calculations the inhibition process could be assigned to an electron withdrawing coordination behavior of the Pd complex at the chain end of the paraformaldehyde chain. This inhibition process can be controlled by the utilized phosphine ligand.