Grafted Polyethylene Glycol–Graphene Oxide as a Novel Triphase Catalyst for Carbenes and Nucleophilic Substitution Reactions

Abstract

Separation and reusability had been main problems for the using of polyethylene glycol (PEG) as phase transfer catalysts (PTCs). To solve these problems, PEG was firstly and successfully grafted on graphene oxide (GO) using BF3·C2H5OC2H5 as Lewis acid catalyst. The solid GO-PEG composites were systemically investigated by characterization techniques (TG, FT-IR, XPS, ICP-AES etc.) and then applied to some carbenes and nucleophilic substitution reactions as novel triphase catalysts. As the results, GO-PEG showed not only equally excellent catalytic activity (≥ 93% yield of 7,7-dichlorobicyclo[4.1.0]heptane and iodooctane) but also incomparable reusability (≥ 85% yield of iodooctane after using for four times) in comparison with traditional PTCs (PEG).