Polymer-micelle incarcerated scandium as a polymer-supported catalyst for high-throughput organic synthesis.

A novel immobilization technique for Sc(OTf)3, a polymer-micelle incarcerated (PMI) method, has been developed. PMI Sc(OTf)3 is highly active in several fundamental carbon-carbon bond-forming reactions. The catalyst is recovered quantitatively by simple filtration and reused several times without loss of catalytic activity, and no Sc leaching was observed in all reactions (<0.1 ppm). In addition, several solvents are available, and these aspects are suitable for high-throughput organic synthesis (HTOS). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first example of immobilization of Lewis acids utilizing polymer micelles.