1274
Y. Du et al. / Tetrahedron Letters 47 (2006) 1271–1275
this mechanism which does not involve any change of
stereochemistry at the chiral carbon center, that is not
attacked.
Du, Y.; Kong, D.-L.; Wang, H.-Y.; Cai, F.; Tian, J.-S.;
Wang, J.-Q.; He, L.-N. J. Mol. Catal. A: Chem. 2005, 241,
2
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H.; He, L.-N.; Sakakura, T.; Hu, C.-W. J. Catal. 2005,
3. Conclusion
2
33, 119.
In conclusion, the PEG-supported quaternary ammo-
nium salt, PEG6000(NBu Br) , efficiently catalyzes the
chemical fixation of carbon dioxide with epoxides under
4
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Kaneda, K. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1999, 121, 4526; (b)
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solvent-free conditions. Supporting Bu NBr on soluble
4
3
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polymer (PEG6000) enhances the catalytic activity.
The workup procedure is simple and the catalyst can
be recovered by filtration and reused over 5 times with-
out loss of catalytic activity and selectivity. Remarkably,
a high purity (>99.0%) of the product was obtained in
each cycle without any additional purification process.
This environmentally friendly protocol presented here
offers simplicity of operation and enables recyclability
of homogeneous catalyst. The effects of the counter
anion, the chain length of PEG, and the bulk of alkyl
group on the catalytic activity for cyclic carbonate syn-
thesis and possible applicability of the PEG-supported
catalysts to other reactions are currently under investi-
gation in our laboratory.
5
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We gratefully acknowledge the National Science Foun-
dation of China (Grant No. 20472030, 20421202), the
Committee of Science and Technology of Tianjin (Grant
No. 033609311), Ministry of Education of China and
Nankai University for financial support.
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Experimental details and the charts of H NMR and
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