Syntheses and Activities of Vanadium-based Catalysts for the Coupling of CO 2 and Epoxides

Abstract

Cyclic carbonates as derivatives of CO 2 have drawn attention owing to their several industrial applications. This permits the utilization of CO 2 in a greener way, at the same time, challenges the current practice for synthesizing cyclic carbonates and its derivatives.

This thesis mainly focused on the catalytic coupling reaction of CO 2 and epoxides, a new ligand was created in the making of the catalyst. The objective is to design and synthesize a homogeneous single-molecule transition metal catalyst with the new ligand, in particular if the catalyst(s) can have a better performance on the coupling reaction with different epoxides under various conditions.

Hence, the synthesis of new ligand and catalyst will be described here. The reaction parameters were set in permutations to determine the ideal reaction conditions. Reaction mechanisms are proposed to explain the experimental observations. Repeatable and stable molecules are able to be synthesized by detailed processes.

Keywords: transition metal, homogeneous catalysis, catalytic, coupling reaction, epoxide