Highly Efficient Catalytic Cyclic Carbonate Formation by Pyridyl Salicylimines.
Saravanan SubramanianJoonho ParkJeehye ByunYousung JungCafer T YavuzPublished in: ACS applied materials & interfaces (2018)
Cyclic carbonates as industrial commodities offer a viable nonredox carbon dioxide fixation, and suitable heterogeneous catalysts are vital for their widespread implementation. Here, we report a highly efficient heterogeneous catalyst for CO2 addition to epoxides based on a newly identified active catalytic pocket consisting of pyridine, imine, and phenol moieties. The polymeric, metal-free catalyst derived from this active site converts less-reactive styrene oxide under atmospheric pressure in quantitative yield and selectivity to the corresponding carbonate. The catalyst does not need additives, solvents, metals, or co-catalysts, can be reused at least 10 cycles without the loss of activity, and scaled up easily to a kilogram scale. Density functional theory calculations reveal that the nucleophilicity of pyridine base gets stronger due to the conjugated imines and H-bonding from phenol accelerates the reaction forward by stabilizing the intermediate.
Keyphrases
- highly efficient
- density functional theory
- carbon dioxide
- molecular dynamics
- ionic liquid
- healthcare
- primary care
- drug delivery
- minimally invasive
- heavy metals
- high resolution
- wastewater treatment
- genome wide
- photodynamic therapy
- single cell
- cancer therapy
- human health
- mass spectrometry
- health risk assessment
- health risk
- room temperature
- quality improvement
- dna methylation
- drug release
- drinking water
- gold nanoparticles