An Improved Manganese Pincer Catalyst for low Temperature Hydrogenation of Carbon Monoxide to Methanol

A manganese pincer complex Mn-2 for the homogeneously catalysed conversion of CO/H-2 to methanol was developed using a novel PNP ligand design. Compared to the previous state-of-the-art catalyst system Mn-1, the presented Mn-2 with different substituents at the P-atoms led to a significant increase of the reaction rate (TOF up to >1600 h(-1)).