Abstract: Water/organic biphasic catalysis provided a kind effective way for solving the problem of difficulty from recovering the catalyst in homogeneous catalysis theoretically and practically. So far its application range has been seriously restricted by the water solubility of the substrates. Such a restriction will be fundamentally eliminated by thermoregulated phase-transfer catalysis. The principle of the thermoregulated phase-transfer catalysis, the design and synthesis of thermoregulated phase-transfer ligands and their application in the water/organic two phase-hydroformylation of higher olefins severally insoluble in water, were systematically introduced.

Key words: Water-soluble phosphiino ligands, Thermoregulated phase-transfer catalysis, Water/organic two-phase hydroformylation, Homogeneous catalysts separation