Metal halides supported on mesoporous carbon nitride as efficient heterogeneous catalysts for the cycloaddition of CO2

• DOI: 10.1016/j.molcata.2015.03.024
• Publication Date: 2015-04-06T05:54:48Z
• Authors: Jie Xu; Fei Wu; Quan Jiang; Jie-Kun Shang; Yong-Xin Li
• Keywords: Propylene carbonate; Propylene oxide

Abstract A series of ZnCl 2 /mp-C 3 N 4 catalysts were prepared through a wet impregnation method using mesoporous g-C 3 N 4 materials as catalytic supports. The physicochemical properties of the ZnCl 2 /mp-C 3 N 4 catalysts were characterized using several techniques, including N 2 adsorption–desorption, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared, UV–vis diffuse reflectance, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. In the cycloaddition reactions of CO 2 with propylene oxide (PO) to propylene carbonate (PC), the ZnCl 2 /mp-C 3 N 4 materials revealed high catalytic performances at 140 °C and 6 h. Furthermore, other metal halides including ZnBr 2 , CoCl 2 , FeCl 3 , NiCl 2 , and MgCl 2 catalysts supported on mp-C 3 N 4 were fabricated and the synthesized catalysts also demonstrated high performances in the catalytic cycloaddition of CO 2 . A possible catalytic mechanism has been proposed. The mp-C 3 N 4 material served mainly as a basic support to adsorb CO 2 whereas the supported metal halides were active sites to promote the activation of PO and realize its transform into PC.