The use of metal complexes on supports such as silica and alumina provides a method for heterogenizing homogeneous catalysts, allows easy recovery of catalysts from the product mixture, and also facilitates recovery of such systems in fixed bed reactors. Furthermore, novel enhanced catalytic activity is exhibited by these supported catalysts. Allyl-metals and benzyl-metals supported on silica and alumina are known to be active catalysts for carbonylation, hydrogenation and polymerization of a wide variety of substrates(1). We report our preliminary results using such systems as hydrosilylation catalysts.
