Green Chemistry Blog

Chinese scientists provide a clear picture of the cycloaddition of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and epoxides promoted by the KI/hydroxyl catalytic system.

Over recent years, the KI/hydroxyl catalytic system has been recognised as one of the most successful and important routes to convert CO₂ into value-added chemicals; for example, cyclic carbonates.  However, the catalytic mechanism is not clear.  In this work, Buxing Han and colleagues from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, demonstrate a theoretical approach to clarify the catalytic mechanism of KI and the co-catalytic mechanism of hydroxyl substances.  The authors employed density functional theory method to determine the transition structures, rate-determining steps and lowest energy barrier reaction pathways for both gas phase and solvent conditions.  It was found that a ternary synergistic catalytic system was formed between the hydroxyl groups, the potassium cation and the iodine anion, I^––(–OH)–K⁺.

This article is free to access until the 4th September 2012!  Click on the link below to find out more…

The catalytic mechanism of KI and the co-catalytic mechanism of hydroxyl substances for cycloaddition of CO₂ with propylene oxide, Jun Ma, Jinli Liu, Zhaofu Zhang and Buxing Han, Green Chem., 2012, DOI: 10.1039/C2GC35711A

You may also be interested in this article – free to access for 2 weeks:

One-pot conversion of CO₂ and glycerol to value-added products using propylene oxide as the coupling agent, Jun Ma, Jinliang Song, Huizhen Liu, Jinli Liu, Zhaofu Zhang, Tao Jiang, Honglei Fan and Buxing Han, Green Chem., 2012, 14, 1743-1748

Organotin-oxomolybdate coordination polymer as catalyst for synthesis of unsymmetrical organic carbonates, Jinliang Song, Binbin Zhang, Tainbin Wu, Guanying Yang and Buxing Han, Green Chem., 2011, 13, 922-927

Keep up-to-date with the latest content in Green Chemistry by registering for our free table of contents alerts.