Inspired by surface species proposed to occur on heterogeneous catalysts novel oxovanadium(v) silsesquioxanes were synthesised. Reaction of a T8-silsequioxane containing two geminal OH groups with O=V(O(i)Pr)3 led to a dinuclear compound where the geminal disiloxide functions of two silsesquioxanes are bridging two O=V(O(i)Pr) moieties (2). Formation of 2 shows that--in contrast to proposals made for silica surfaces--in molecular chemistry a bidentate coordination of geminal siloxides to one vanadium centre is not favourable. With the background that species being doubly anchored to a support have been suggested to play active roles on V2O5/SiO2 catalysts an anionic complex has been prepared where a divalent dioxovanadium unit replaces one Si corner of a (RSiO1.5)8, cube (a Si-OH function remains pending) (3). 3 has been intensely investigated by vibrational spectroscopy, and to support assignments not only of the v(V=O) bands but also of the v(V-O-Si) bands, whose positions are of interest in the area of heterogeneous catalysis, isotopic enrichment studies and DFT calculations have been performed. The corresponding investigations were aided by the synthesis and analysis of a silylated derivative of 3, 4. Moreover, with regard to their potential as structural and spectroscopic models all complexes were characterised by single crystal X-ray diffraction. Finally, 2 and 3 were tested as potential catalysts for the photooxidation of cyclohexane and benzene with O2. While 2 shows a slightly higher activity than vanadylacetylacetonate, 3 leads to significantly increased turnover numbers for the conversion of benzene to phenol.

Silsesquioxane dioxovanadate(V) complexes were investigated with respect to their potential as a catalyst for the oxidative dehydrogenation of alcohols with O(2) as an oxidant. The turnover frequencies determined were comparatively low, but during the oxidation of cinnamic alcohol an increase in activity was observed in the course of the process, which was inspected more closely. It turned out that during the oxidation of cinnamic alcohol, not only was the aldehyde formed but also cinnamic acid, which in turn reacts with the silsesquioxane complex employed to give NBu(4)[O(2)V(O(2)CC(2)H(2)Ph)(2)], which can also be obtained from NBu(4)VO(3) and cinnamic acid and represents a far more active catalyst, not only for cinnamic alcohol but also for other activated alcohols and hydrocarbons. The rate-determining step of the conversion corresponds to an hydrogen-atom abstraction from the C-H units, as shown by the determination of the kinetic isotope effect in case of 9-hydroxyfluorene, and the reoxidation of the reduced catalyst proceeds via a peroxo intermediate, which is also capable of oxidizing one alcohol equivalent. Furthermore the influence of the organic residues at the carboxylate ligands on the catalyst performance was investigated, which showed that the activity increases with decreasing pK(s) value. Moreover, it was found that during the oxidation the catalyst slowly decomposes, but can be regenerated by addition of excessive carboxylic acid.

In the context of a potential modeling of reduced oxovanadium species occurring on the surfaces of silica-supported vanadia catalysts in the course of its turnover, the incompletely condensed silsesquioxane H(3)(c-pentyl)T(7) was reacted with Cl(4)V(THF)(2) (where THF = tetrahydrofuran) in the presence of triethylamine. Precipitation of 3 equiv of HNEt(3)Cl seemed to point to the clean formation of [((c-pentyl)T(7))(V(IV)Cl)] (1), which was supported by electron paramagnetic resonance studies performed for the resulting solutions, but further analytical and spectroscopic investigations showed that the processes occurring at that stage are more complex than that and even include the formation of [((c-pentyl)T(7))(V(V)O)](2) as a side product. Storage of a red-brown hexane solution of this product mixture reproducibly led to the precipitation of blue crystals belonging to the chloride-free compound [((c-pentyl)T(7))(2)(V(IV)=O)(3)(THF)(2)] (2), as revealed by single-crystal X-ray diffraction. Performing the same reaction in the presence of 2 equiv of pyridine leads to an analogous product, where the THF ligands are replaced by pyridine. Subsequent investigations showed that the terminal oxo ligands at the vanadium centers are, on the one hand, due to the presence of adventitious water; on the other hand, the [(c-pentyl)T(7)](3-) ligand also acted as a source of O(2-). The results of SQUID measurements performed for 2 can be interpreted in terms of a ferromagnetic coupling between the vanadyl units. Exposing 2 to a dioxygen atmosphere resulted in its immediate oxidation to yield the V(V) complex [((c-pentyl)T(7))(V(V)O)](2), which may model a fast reoxidation reaction of oxovanadium(IV) trimers on silica surfaces.

Employing various incompletely condensed silsesquioxanes as ligand precursors in reactions with simple oxovanadates a variety of oxovanadium silsequioxanes could be synthesized, that might be regarded as models for oxovanadium units on silica surfaces. These include a tetranuclear vanadium(IV) compound as well as two complexes where O 2 V + units are coordinated to two siloxide functions as part of a silsesquioxane framework. Moreover, compounds containing Cp*V(O) 2+ moieties were prepared, whose activities as polymerization procatalysts has been examined: They turned out to be moderately active for the polymerization of ethylene. All compounds were fully characterised, in case of the tetranuclear vanadium(IV) complex this also includes the investigation of magnetic behaviour. Moreover, for two complexes also the molecular structures could be determined with sufficient quality via XRD.