After forever changing the drug discovery process in the pharmaceutical industry, combinatorial chemistry methodologies are increasingly being applied to the discovery and optimization of more efficient catalysts and materials (see picture). With the advent of new combinatorial synthesis and screening technologies, coupled with integrated data management systems, the application of these technologies to materials science and catalyst research holds tremendous potential and brings high expectations to this new and exciting field.

For the first time, new catalysts for olefin polymerization have been discovered through the application of fully integrated high-throughput primary and secondary screening techniques supported by rapid polymer characterization methods. Microscale 1-octene primary screening polymerization experiments combining arrays of ligands with reactive metal complexes M(CH(2)Ph)(4) (M = Zr, Hf) and multiple activation conditions represent a new high-throughput technique for discovering novel group (IV) polymerization catalysts. The primary screening methods described here have been validated using a commercially relevant polyolefin catalyst, and implemented rapidly to discover the new amide-ether based hafnium catalyst [eta(2)-(N,O)[bond](2-MeO[bond]C(6)H(4))(2,4,6-Me(3)C(6)H(2))N]Hf(CH(2)Ph)(3) (1), which is capable of polymerizing 1-octene to high conversion. The molecular structure of 1 has been determined by X-ray diffraction. Larger scale secondary screening experiments performed on a focused 96-member amine-ether library demonstrated the versatile high temperature ethylene-1-octene copolymerization capabilities of this catalyst class, and led to significant performance improvements over the initial primary screening discovery. Conventional one gallon batch reactor copolymerizations performed using selected amide-ether hafnium compounds confirmed the performance features of this new catalyst class, serving to fully validate the experimental results from the high-throughput approaches described herein.

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The phenyl backbone-derived P,O-ligands 1 and 2 were investigated for their utility as ligands in palladium/ligand-catalyzed Suzuki reactions. The 2-(2'-dicyclohexylphosphinophenyl)-2-methyl-1,3-dioxolane (ligand 1) in combination with Pd(dba)(2) affords an efficient catalyst for general Suzuki reactions of a wide variety of arylboronic acids and aryl chlorides, bromides, and iodides to afford the desired biaryl products in high isolated yields. Arylboronic acids and aryl chlorides containing electron-poor, electron-rich, and ortho substituents participate effectively. In contrast, the structurally related ligand 2-(2'-dicyclohexylphosphinophenyl)-1,3-dioxolane (ligand 2) was found to be less efficient under similar conditions. The reaction of ligand 1 with Pd(dba)(2) affords the complex LPd(dba) (14, L = 1). The NMR spectroscopic and X-ray crystallographic data of complex 14 establish that ligand 1 functions as a P,O-chelating ligand in complex 14. The reaction of ligand 2 (2 equiv) with Pd(dba)(2) and excess 4-(t)()Bu-C(6)H(4)Br or the ligand displacement reaction of {Pd[P(o-tolyl)(3)](4-(t)()Bu-C(6)H(4))(&mgr;-Br)}(2) with ligand 2 affords the bis-phosphine complex L(2)Pd(4-(t)()Bu-C(6)H(4))(Br) (13, L = 2). The NMR spectroscopic data of complex 13 establish that ligand 2 in complex 13 functions as a nonchelating ligand. Thus, the higher efficiency of ligand 1 over ligand 2 in Pd/L-catalyzed Suzuki arylation of aryl chlorides can be ascribed to the ability of ligand 1 to generate and stabilize mono-phosphine P,O-chelating Pd/L intermediates, which appear to be most suitable for Suzuki arylation reactions involving certain substrates and conditions.

In less than one minute the catalytic activity and selectivity of a single catalyst was measured in combinatorial libraries of ternary Rh-Pd-Pt-Cu alloys. Only slightly more than two hours were needed to complete a library with 136 elements. The elements of the libraries (ca. 2-4 μg of material) are contained in a two-dimensional array synthesized by a thin-film technique. The analysis was performed by a scanning mass spectrometer (see picture).