Abstract
Nature has served as a major source of inspiration in chemistry. Also in the case of catalysis chemists
can gain important clues about structure/function by studying and mimicking enzymes (nature’s
catalysts). Enzymes can perform their catalytic reactions with very high selectivity and activity. Also
their ability to perform asymmetric catalysis at high turnover numbers is noteworthy. Inspired by
these enzymes we designed a system based on a M12L24 spherical cage (with M = Pd2+). The overall
system, together with rhodium(I) pre-catalysts, was developed to perform asymmetric
hydroformylation/hydrogenation. The bent ligands (L) were successfully functionalised with amino
acids, the (chiral) building blocks of enzymes. Additionally, a small library of functionalised
triphenylphosphine based ligands, with moieties capable of forming hydrogen bonding interactions,
was introduced. Despite the successful development of the imagined system, under the conditions
reported here no enantiomeric excess (ee) was observed. Improvement of these postulated system
could yield enantiomeric excess.