Stimuli-responsive dendrimers. Towards tunable catalysts (DENDSWITCH)

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Catalysis is a unique tool to carry out chemical transformations, and it is well established that subtle changes in experimental parameters could have a dramatic effect on the outcome of catalytic reactions. Dendritic catalysts have the potential for combining the advantages and minimizing the disadvantages of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts. Indeed, they are soluble in solvents, but they possess a large and well-defined number of catalytic sites and they can be easily separated from the products (and reused) due to their large size. Several dendritic catalysts have been proposed already, illustrating the growing importance of this field of research. However, whole sections of catalysis have been scarcely or not at all explored up to now using dendritic catalysts. This is in particular the case for using “switchable” (stimuli-responsive) catalysts, which are driven by temperature, light, pH, or electrochemically, where the external stimulus will be used to vary the steric (bite angle, steric demand) and/or electronic (σ-donor/π-acceptor) properties or to induce hemilabile behavior. Their application to change catalytic activity at will and shut down or activate catalysts to trigger catalytic events will be scrutinized.