Readily prepared polymer-supported molybdenum carbonyls as novel reusable and highly active epoxidation catalysts

Molybdenum carbonyl complexes immobilized onto polymer-bound phosphines were easily prepared in two steps from commercially available chloromethylated polystyrene resin. These catalysts were found to efficiently catalyze epoxidation of a wide variety of alkenes, including aromatic and aliphatic terminal alkenes using tert-butylhydroperoxide. The new heterogenized molybdenum carbonyl epoxidation catalysts can be easily recovered by simple filtration and show no appreciable loss of activity even after 10 times of recycling.