The Use of Sustainable Transition Metals for the Cycloaddition of Epoxides and CO2 under Mild Reaction Conditions

Following green chemistry principles, we present a one pot synthesis of zinc curcumin complex as a homogeneous, sustainable catalyst for cyclic carbonate (CC) synthesis from CO2 and a variety of terminal and internal epoxides under 1 bar CO2 at 60 degrees C using DMSO as a solvent. Zinc curcumin (Zn-Cur) complex was identified via H-1/C-13 NMR and ATR-FTIR spectroscopies, elemental analysis, ionic conductivity, and quantitative silver nitrate test to confirm a 1 : 1 molar ratio of metal to the ligand. Interestingly, Zn-Cur showed an outstanding performance in catalysing the synthesis of renewable CCs including dimeric pinene and limonene carbonates. In this context, other metal complexes, including magnesium (Mg-II), calcium (Ca-II), and nickel (Ni-II) complexes showed good to excellent catalytic activity. Furthermore, a plausible reaction mechanism was investigated by density functional theory (DFT) calculations. The reaction was found to be overall exergonic by 39 kJ/mol and the rate determining step was CO2 insertion, which is in good agreement with the experimental findings.