The electrochemical behavior of a covalently functionalized hyperbranched polymer with a vitamin B 12 derivative (B 12 HBP) was investigated by cyclic voltammetry and UVvis spectroscopy combined with bulk electrolysis in N,Ndimethylformamide. The B 12 HBP showed excellent properties for a homogeneous catalyst such as the good accessibilities of the cobalt centers in B 12 HBP to an electrode and substrates and the maintained supernucleophilicity of the Co(I) species to alkyl halides. The cobalt-methylated B 12 HBP was newly synthesized, and its electrochemical behavior was also investigated by cyclic voltammetry. Furthermore, B 12 HBP was used as an electrochemical degradation catalyst for 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2-bis(4-chlorophenyl)ethane (DDT). This work presents the first electrocatalysis study of a catalytically active transition-metal complex on a homogeneous dendritic support and investigates the suitability of the present B 12 HBP system for electrochemical dehalogenation.There has been increasing attention to the use of soluble polymers for homogeneous catalyst supports as a potential alternative to traditional solid-phase syntheses in recent years. 14 In particular, soluble branched polymers, such as dendrimers and hyperbranched polymers (HBPs), have been widely investigated as homogeneous supports for catalytically active transition-metal complexes, which are either covalently attached to the core/periphery moiety or noncovalently incorporated. 5,6 These microscopically heterogeneous and dendritic polymers offer several advantages such as their ready removal from the products, 7 good accessibilities to catalytic centers, 8 and dendritic effects on the catalyst activity/selectivity. 9,10 In other words, they can combine the advantages of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis as promising scaffolds which effectively organize catalytic sites on their nanosized structure but do not hinder the catalytic process. However, the application of these branched polymers to electrochemical molecular transformations represents an almost unexplored area, although the electrochemical activation of the transition-metal catalysts is a beneficial method to develop good redox catalysis systems.
11Vitamin B 12 and derivatives can acquire three formal oxidation states of cobalt, and each oxidation state has quite difference ligand accepting abilities (i.e., octahedral, square pyramidal, or square planar for Co(III), Co(II), or Co(I), respectively).12,13 Such a redox-and coordination-rich chemistry plays a critical role in the cobalamin-dependent enzymatic reactions in vivo 14,15 and in a number of chemical trans-