(694h) The Catalytic Mechanisms and Performances of Ionic Liquids in Green Reaction Processes

Xiaoqian Yao, Suojiang Zhang*

CAS Key Laboratory of Green Process and Engineering, Beijing Key Laboratory of Ionic Liquids Clean Process, State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Complex Systems, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, PR China

Email: sjzhang@ipe.ac.cn; xqyao@ipe.ac.cn

Ionic liquids are with many attractive properties including excellent catalytic and dissolvability properties, and in past few decades their huge potential are realized to replace the traditional organic solvent in many kinds of reactions. ^[1,2] Ionic liquids were supposed to be reaction intermediate and catalyst in different reaction processes, such as hydrogenation and carbonylation, etc. ^[3] Ionic liquid catalysts were developed and investigated extensively. However, absence of in-depth investigation on the reaction mechanism and performance of ionic liquid catalysis is a bottleneck problem in applications.

Based on the fundamental understanding in the structures and properties of ILs, several green reactions using ILs as catalysts or solvents, such as cleaner process of alkylation, formation of carbonates from CO₂, biomass conversion and PET polyester were investigated by quantum chemical calculations and multiscale simulations. The structure-activity relationship of ions and ionic clusters in ionic liquid catalysts were tried to be established. The synergistic law of cation and anion of was obtained, such as in reaction of CO₂ with epoxide and degradation of polyester catalyzed by ionic liquids. The catalysis mechanisms by ionic clusters in producing carbonate and branched alkanes are revealed, too. All of these researches would provide scientific basis for understanding the ionic liquid reactions, development of efficient ionic liquid catalyst, and establishment of green reaction processes.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (21776281), Natural Science Foundation of Beijing, China (2182073). and the National Key R & D Program of China (2017YFB0307303).

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[2] Mahmoud, E.; Yu, J.; Gorte, R. J.; Lobo, R. F., Diels-Alder and Dehydration Reactions of Biomass-Derived Furan and Acrylic Acid for the Synthesis of Benzoic Acid. ACS Catalysis 2015, 5, 6946-6955.

[3] Bobbink, F. D.; Vasilyev, D.; Hulla, M.; Chamam, S.; Menoud, F.;Laurenczy, G.; Katsyuba, S.; Dyson, P. J., Intricacies of Cation-Anion Combinations in Imidazolium Salt-Catalyzed Cycloaddition of CO₂ Into Epoxides. ACS Catalysis 2018, 8, 2589-2594.