(621l) Synergistic Catalytic Performance in the Synthesis of Cyclic Carbonates Based on Ionic Liquids

Synergistic Catalytic
Effect in the Synthesis of Cyclic Carbonates Based on Ionic Liquids

Suo-Jiang Zhang , Wei-Guo
Cheng

Key Laboratory of Green
Process and Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, P.O. Box 353, Beijing, 100190, China

*Corresponding
author: sjzhang@home.ipe.ac.cn

Carbon dioxide released annually to the atmosphere at ca. 30 000 Mt1 is
also an attractive C1 feedstock as it is nontoxic, abundant, inexpensive. From
the viewpoint of environmental protection and resource utilization, it is
important to transform CO₂ into cyclic carbonates efficiently not only in
academia but also in industrial applications(Scheme 1). Many scientists have made a
concentrated effort to improve the performance of the ionic liquids (ILs)
catalysts during the past decade due to their tunable structures. Synergistic
catalytic effects of ILs catalytic system play an important role of promoting
the cycloaddition reactions of epoxides. However, due to the diversity of
different anion¨Ccation combinations it is difficult to make generalizations
about synergistic effects.

Scheme
1 Fixation CO₂
and epoxides into cyclic carbonates

In this work, we have investigated the
synergistic effect in the catalytic system based on ILs through experimental and theoretical studies^1-5. The results show that
metal and ionic liquids, cations and anions of ionic liquids, the
functional groups in cations or supports all have a synergistic effect on the
cycloaddition reactions. Synergistic catalytic effects of ILs play an important
role of remarkably reducing the activation energy and promoting ring-opening of
epoxide. The design of catalytic system of ionic liquids can be possible as the
synergistic effect on a molecular level is understood by using density
functional theory (DFT) studies and in situ characterization. Significant
developments in IL catalysts design and optimal process development for the
synthesis of cyclic carbonates have been made with the possible prediction of
the synergetic effect based on ILs.

Keywords: synergistic effect,  ionic liquid, carbon dioxide, cyclic
carbonate, process

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