Enantioselective electrocatalytic epoxidation of olefins by chiral manganese Schiff-base complexes

Asymmetric electrocatalytic epoxidation of olefins has been achieved with chiral manganese Schiff-base complexes immobilized on a glassy carbon electrode surface using molecular dioxygen as oxidant. The electrocatalytic system gives moderate enantiomeric excess (ee) values (65-77%) for the epoxidation of cis-stilbene, trans-stilbene and styrene. Our results indicated that the catalyst turnover number is significantly improved when the manganese complexes are immobilized on the electrode surface, which can be attributed to the suppression of the formation of inactive manganese dimer when the active metal centres are attached to the polymer network.