writer：Ren-Jian Wei, Xing-Hong Zhang*, Bin-Yang Du, Zhi-Qiang Fan, Guo-Rong Qi
keywords：Carbon dioxide,Epoxides,Coupling reaction,Double metal cyanide complex
source：期刊
specific source：Journal of Molecular Catalysis A: Chemical 379 (2013) 38– 45
Issue time：2013年

Although most of the zinc-containing catalysts show excellent catalytic activity for the coupling reaction of carbon dioxide (CO₂) with epoxides, generally, trace amounts of water in the reaction systems could cause a significant decrease of the catalytic activity. In this work, a nanoporous zinc-cobalt double metalcyanide complex (Zn–Co^IIIDMCC) with high surface area was synthesized via a modified hydrothermal process using tri-block copolymer EO₂₀PO₇₀EO₂₀(P123) as the template. When cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) was used as the co-catalyst, the Zn–Co^IIIDMCC/CTAB binary catalyst system could effectively catalyze the coupling reaction of CO₂ with hydrous propylene oxide (PO), producing propylene carbonate (PC) with nearly 100% productivity and 100% selectivity. This binary catalyst system could also catalyze the coupling reaction of other commercial epoxides and CO₂ without using any solvents with nearly 100% productivity and 100% selectivity. With such new catalyst system, hundreds of ppm water in the reaction system will no longer be the matter.