Catalytic properties of PPI dendrimers on ester hydrolysis

摘要

Nowadays dendrimers have been the most fascinating molecules to scientists worldwide because of their great potential for applications in biology and materials science such as bio-mimetic catalysts, molecular carriers for chemical catalysts, potential vehicles for drug and gene delivery system and building blocks for novel materials. Among these applications, catalysis excels as the most promising. The field of dendritic catalysts and dendrimers in catalysis spreads into various areas of organic, inorganic, materials, biological and polymer chemistry. Catalytic applications have been focused on transition metal complexes of dendrimers and metallodendrimers, whose catalyses can be both homogeneous and heterogeneous. In those studies, catalytic sites can also be located at the core or at the periphery of the dendrimer structures. Commercially available starburst PPI (poly(propylene imine)) and PAMAM (poly(amido amine)) dendrimers have been intensively studied for catalytic and other applications. However, little study has been reported on the intrinsic catalytic properties of these dendrimers themselves.