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Construction of advanced materials through self-assembly on the molecular level is an important route to achieve novel functionality. Self-assembly of thiols onto gold has during the last decades shown greate promise in the creation of functional nanomaterials, such as sensors or catalysts, but for many applications silicon should be a better substrate since it offers semiconducting properties and better processing abilities in addition to being cheaper. This work describes an efficient novel method to incorporate reactive disulfide bonds onto a silica surface under mild reaction conditions. The reactive thiol groups introduced onto the silica surface will be oxidized but is then converted into highly reactive thiopyridyl groups, which can easily be utilized for further organic synthesis involving thiol-containing molecules.

Cobalt tetraarylporphyrins with thioacetate-functionalized carbon chains on the aryl groups were synthesized (CoTPP-L) and were used as a model system for investigating catalytic activity in homogeneous and heterogeneous oxidation catalysis. For heterogeneous catalysis CoTPP-L was immobilized onto gold surfaces through thiol-gold self-assembly, and onto silica surfaces by the above mentioned disulfide exchange method.

The properties of the molecular layers were characterized on the molecular level by means of X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning probe microscopy (SPM). The immobilization on gold surfaces took place through the formation of multiple thiolate bonds and it could be controlled by varying the preparation scheme. More thiolate bonds form if the thioacetyl protective groups of the thiol linkers are cleaved off prior to immobilization. The CoTPP-L molecules were in all cases found to form stable disordered monolayers on gold surfaces. On silica surfaces the CoTPP-L forms patchwise multilayers.

The catalytic performance of the heterogenized systems (CoTPP-L immobilized onto gold or silicon wafers) was evaluated and it was found that the strong inactivation observed for their homogeneous congener was avoided. As a result, the turnover number per molecule in heterogeneous catalysis was at least 100 times higher than that of the corresponding homogeneous catalyst. It is thus demonstrated that the performance of these catalysts can be dramatically improved if the catalyst arrangement can be controlled on the molecular level. Work is ongoing to extend the system to high surface area materials.