Laboratory adaptation of olefin metathesis using ionic liquids demonstrates green chemistry principles, enhancing student engagement.
As a teaching tool for green chemistry and organometallic chemistry, the olefin metathesis reaction catalyzed by Grubbs catalysts in a room temperature ionic liquid (RTIL) was adapted to our upper level laboratory class. This lab introduces several key concepts in green chemistry; general philosophy and the importance of “green” alternatives to volatile organic solvents, catalysis, and recycling of catalysts. The organometallic concepts include metal carbene complexes, electron-counting, type of organometallic reactions and the reaction mechanism of olefin metathesis. Olefin metathesis is also concurrently taught in a co-requisite lecture course, Advanced Inorganic Chemistry. Students carried out styrene self-cross metathesis in two different RTILs: [BMIM]PF6 and [BMIM]BF4 (BMIM = 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium). Students also compared two types of Grubbs-Hoveyda second generation catalysts. The lab included miscibility tests of RTILs with various solvents to find their general solubility behavior.
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M. Fujita (2010) studied this question.
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