The activity of covalently immobilized Grubbs–Hoveyda type catalyst is highly dependent on the nature of the support material

A Hoveyda-type catalyst for olefin metathesis was synthesized and covalently attached via an amide bond to four different solid supports. One of these supports was a home-made hybrid silica support, where an ultra-thin copolymer of poly(styrene) and poly(acrylamide) was grafted on. The three other supports were commercially available, namely HypoGel 400, PEGA and Trisoperl. It was demonstrated that the catalysts were active in ring closing metathesis (RCM) reactions as well as in cross metathesis (CM) and ring opening metathesis (ROM) reactions, but the activity of the catalyst was highly dependent on the nature of the support.