RESEARCH ARTICLE

Polyethylene glycol-supported ionic liquid as a highly efficient catalyst for the synthesis of propylene carbonate under mild conditions

  • Rui YAO ,
  • Hua WANG ,
  • Jinyu HAN
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  • Key Laboratory for Green Chemical Technology of State Education Ministry, School of Chemical Engineering & Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China

Received date: 10 Jan 2012

Accepted date: 16 Mar 2012

Published date: 05 Sep 2012

Copyright

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

Abstract

The coupling reaction of propylene and CO2 to form propylene carbonate (PC) was promoted by an ionic liquid (IL) covalently bound to polyethylene glycol (PEG). The supported ionic liquid, which has both acidic and basic components, proved to be an active catalyst for PC synthesis under mild conditions. The effects of different cations and anions, reaction temperature, CO2 pressure, and reaction time were investigated. It was demonstrated that the acid group in the catalyst plays an important role in the reaction. With this system, a high PC yield (95%) was achieved under mild conditions (3.0 MPa, 120°C and 4 h) without a co-solvent. In addition, the catalyst was readily recovered and reused. Based on the experimental results, a plausible mechanism for the catalyst was proposed.

Cite this article

Rui YAO , Hua WANG , Jinyu HAN . Polyethylene glycol-supported ionic liquid as a highly efficient catalyst for the synthesis of propylene carbonate under mild conditions[J]. Frontiers of Chemical Science and Engineering, 2012 , 6(3) : 239 -245 . DOI: 10.1007/s11705-012-1297-y

Acknowledgments

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21076152), the Special Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (No. 2100032110018) and the Program of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities, China (No. B06006).
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