Coverage of surfactants on polyoxometalate tunes the selectivity of alkene epoxidation

Abstract

Self-assembled nanosheets were formed through the interaction between polyoxometalate (POM) and dodecyltrimethylammonium bromide (DTB), which has hydrophilic groups at both ends of the carbon chain and serves as a “bridge” connecting the POMs. The resulting POM assemblies demonstrated high efficiency in the epoxidation of cyclohexene, with the selectivity of the reaction being tunable by adjusting the coverage of DTB on the POM.