Abstract
Polymer‐supported quaternary phosphonium salt (PS‐QPS) was explored as effective catalyst for the coupling reaction of carbon dioxide with epoxides. The results indicated that cyclic carbonates with high yields (98.6%) and excellent selectivity (100%) could be prepared at the conditions of 5 MPa CO2, 150°C, and 6 h without the addition of organic solvents or cocatalysts. The effects of various reaction conditions on the catalytic performance were investigated in detail. The catalyst is applicable to a variety of epoxides, producing the corresponding cyclic carbonates in good yields. Furthermore, the catalyst could be recovered easily and reused for five times without loss of catalytic activity obviously. A proposed mechanism for synthesis of cyclic carbonate in the presence of PS‐QPS was discussed. The catalyst was characterized by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Fourier transform infrared (FT‐IR) spectrum. It is believed that PS‐QPS is of great potential for CO2 fixation applications due to its unusual advantages, such as easy preparation, high activity and selectivity, stability, low cost, and reusability.
Highlights
Due to the economic and environmental bene ts, developing chemical synthesis processes using renewable resource becomes increasingly important [1]
110 MT of CO2 are currently used for chemical synthesis annually. e chemicals synthesized include urea, salicylic acid, cyclic carbonates, and polycarbonates [8]. e cycloaddition reaction of CO2 with epoxides to afford the ve-membered cyclic carbonates represents a promising methodology in CO2 chemical xation [9, 10], these cyclic carbonates can be widely used for various purposes, such as electrolytic elements of lithium secondary batteries, polar aprotic solvents, monomers for synthesizing polycarbonates, chemical ingredients for preparing medicines or agricultural chemicals, alkylating agents, engineering plastics, and biomedical elds [11, 12]
In the previous works [33,34,35], we found that quaternary phosphonium salts demonstrated very high activity and excellent selectivity in the cycloaddition of CO2 to epoxides
Summary
Due to the economic and environmental bene ts, developing chemical synthesis processes using renewable resource becomes increasingly important [1]. From the green chemistry point of view, the use of CO2 as feedstock in synthesis and industrial applications plays an important role in the protection of environment because it is a primary greenhouse gas which contributes to global warming, and the emission of CO2 from combustion into the atmosphere continues to rise [2, 3]. Carbon dioxide is an attractive C1 building block, safe raw material, and environmentally friendly chemical reagent in organic synthesis since it is highly abundant, inexpensive, nontoxic, and non ammable [6, 7]. Erefore, chemical xation of CO2 becomes more important from both an ecological and an economic points of view. In some of the cases, organic solvents and expensive metal catalysts are used in the reactions or workup procedures, and the products are commonly isolated from the reaction systems by distillation; the yield of the desired products still remained low. erefore, development
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
