Immobilisation of homogeneous catalysts facilitates the separation and reuse of the catalyst and thus can offer the benefits of both homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis.
Within the Centre a variety of methods of catalyst immobilisation are being investigated covering both immobilisation on solid supports and immobilisation in an immiscible liquid phase. For solid phase immobilisation there is expertise in the covalent attachment of catalysts to polystyrene, silicas, clays etc and the use of the resulting catalysts in both batch and flow phase chemistry.
Expertise in liquid phase immobilisation covers the development of catalysts which dissolve selectively in fluorous solvents and ionic liquids.