Mechanistic insight into the cyclohexene epoxidation with VO(acac)2 and tert- butyl hydroperoxide Matthias Vandichel1, Karen Leus2, Pascal Van Der Voort2, Michel Waroquier1,* and Veronique Van Speybroeck1,* 1 Center for Molecular Modeling, Ghent University, Technologiepark 903, 9052 Zwijnaarde, Belgium 2 Department of Inorganic and Physical Chemistry, Center for Ordered Materials, Organometallics and Catalysis, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281 – building S3, 9000 Gent, Belgium *Corresponding authors: Prof. M. Waroquier
[email protected], Prof. V. Van Speybroeck,
[email protected]. Abstract The epoxidation reaction of cyclohexene is investigated for the system vanadyl acetylacetonate (VO(acac)2) as catalyst with tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) as oxidant with the aim to identify the most active species for epoxidation and to retrieve insight into the most plausible epoxidation mechanism. The reaction mixture is composed of various inactive and active complexes in which vanadium may either have oxidation state +IV or +V. Inactive species are activated with TBHP to form active complexes. After reaction with cyclohexene each active species transforms back into an inactive complex which may be reactivated again. The reaction mixture is quite complex containing hydroxyl, acetyl acetonate, acetate or a tert-butoxide anion as ligands and thus various ligand exchange reactions may occur among active and inactive complexes. Also radical decomposition reaction allow transforming V+IV to V+V species. To obtain insight into the most abundant active complexes, each of previous transformation steps has been modeled through thermodynamic equilibrium steps. To unravel the nature of the most plausible epoxidation mechanism, first principle chemical kinetics calculations have been performed on all proposed epoxidation pathways.