Insights into Substituent Effects of Benzaldehyde Derivatives in a Heterogeneous Organocatalyzed Aldol Reaction

Organocatalyst immobilization onto solid supports represents a promising method for enabling asymmetric organocatalysis while retaining the advantages of heterogeneous catalysts, including catalyst separation, recycling, and use fixed-bed reactors. Understanding how such heterogenized catalytic systems work is fundamental to develop tailor more efficient ones. Herein, we have elucidated role reactant molecular structure on surface interactions reactivity aldol reactions between benzaldehyde derivatives hydroxyacetone catalyzed by SBA-15 immobilized L-proline. NMR relaxation time analysis reveals that stronger interaction aldehyde reduces reactivity, which attributed reduced access L-proline sites, hence inhibiting formation enamine intermediate The results show phenomena in these are important considerations selection, opening up new directions explore this area research.