Cyclic carbonates are important compounds because they find applications in numerous, industrial-scale applications. The cyclic carbonates are prepared via the cycloaddition of CO2 into epoxides (CCE reaction), which is an atom-economical reaction that operates under solvent-free conditions. Due to its importance, the reaction has become a benchmark catalytic reaction in CO2-chemistry, and numerous classes of catalysts have been developed. In particular, ionic liquids and ionic polymers have emerged as a class of potent catalysts for the transformation. We have prepared four types of imidazolium-based polymers (Fig. 1) that are potent catalysts for the CCE reaction. In particular, the cross-linked polymers (Generation 1, 1’ and 3) are thermally stable (&gt; 300 °C) and insoluble, and allow facile product extraction. Incorporating functional groups (H-bond donors, generation 2 and 3) into the side-chain of the polymers resulted in high catalytic activity via favorable interactions with the substrate. During the course of our investigation we have discovered that structurally related simple salt catalysts can extract CO2 near-quantitatively from gas streams such as air and synthetic flue gas, and we are currently building a continuous-flow reactor for CO2-capture and fixation under heterogeneous catalysis.

Design of ionic polymer catalysts for the synthesis of cyclic carbonates from CO2 and epoxides

255th National Meeting (2018)

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