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Efficient synthesis of cyclic carbonate via transformation of CO2 catalyzed by solid-base bifunctional graphitic carbon nitride materials

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Abstract

Catalytic cycloaddition of CO2 is a practical strategy to synthesize cyclic carbonate and is also a sustainable route to utilize CO2. Graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) is a typical solid base but showed limited activity in catalytic cycloaddition of CO2 due to its lack of acidic sites. Herein, acid–base bifunctional g-C3N4 materials were synthesized. The incorporation of Zr and Al cations into g-C3N4 induced the formation of acidic sites and meanwhile enhanced the basic strength. The characterization results revealed that metal cations might coordinate with nitrogen atoms of g-C3N4. As heterogeneous catalysts, the synthesized ZrxAlyO/g-C3N4 materials showed superior catalytic activity to ZrO2/g-C3N4 in the cycloaddition of CO2 with propylene oxide. Under optimal reaction conditions, the maximum yield of propylene carbonate reached 90%, and the catalysts were able to be recycled at least five times without any loss in catalytic activity.

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The pore size distributions of the material, and effects of reaction time and amount of PO and DMF on the catalytic performance are provided in the Supplementary Information.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21878027, 22278041), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China (BK2010485), and Qing Lan Project of Jiangsu Province (2014). J. Xu also thanks Dr. Mengyan Chen of the Shiyanjia Lab (www.shiyanjia.com) for her help in XPS characterization.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21878027, 22278041), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province of China (BK2010485), and Qing Lan Project of Jiangsu Province (2014).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210094, People’s Republic of China

    Na Liu & Jun Luo

  2. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Catalytic Materials and Technology, School of Petrochemical Engineering, Changzhou University, Gehu Middle Road 21, Changzhou, Jiangsu, 213164, People’s Republic of China

    Na Liu, Juan Du, Jie Xu & Bing Xue

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  1. Na Liu
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  2. Juan Du
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  3. Jie Xu
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  4. Bing Xue
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  5. Jun Luo
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Contributions

NL conducted the main research experiments and wrote the draft of the manuscript. JD analyzed materials. JX conceived the research work and revised the manuscript. BX analyzed materials. JL supervised the research work.

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Correspondence to Jie Xu or Jun Luo.

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Liu, N., Du, J., Xu, J. et al. Efficient synthesis of cyclic carbonate via transformation of CO2 catalyzed by solid-base bifunctional graphitic carbon nitride materials. Res Chem Intermed 48, 4883–4900 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11164-022-04856-w

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