Olefin metathesis as a tool for multinuclear Co(III)salen catalyst construction: access to cooperative catalysts.

The construction of novel (macrocyclic) multinuclear Co(III)salen catalysts is reported. Olefin metathesis has been used as a key construction tool for the multimetallic structures starting from versatile allyl-substituted salen scaffolds. The Co(III) complexes were tested in the hydrolytic kinetic resolution of (rac)-1,2-epoxyhexane and epoxide ring opening reactions using methanol as the nucleophile. The preliminary results suggest a cooperative mode of catalysis in the case of bis-Co(III)salen macrocycle 10.