Site Isolation and Epoxidation Reactivity of a Templated Ferrous Bis(phenanthroline) Site in Porous Silica

Teaching an old ligand new tricks: Attachment of a CuI–bis(phenanthroline) complex to mesoporous silica and metal exchange create site-isolated FeII–bis(phenanthroline) complexes which efficiently epoxidize terminal olefins with peracetic acid (see scheme). This strategy side-steps the formation of a FeII–tris(phenanthroline) complex, which predominates in solution.