A Multicomponent Approach to Oxazolidinone Synthesis Catalyzed by Rare‐Earth Metal Amides

Advanced zeolite and ordered mesoporous silica-based catalysts for the conversion of CO2 to chemicals and fuels

For many years, capturing, storing or sequestering CO₂ from concentrated emission sources or from air has been a powerful technique for reducing atmospheric CO₂. Moreover, the use of CO₂ as a C1 building block to mitigate CO₂ emissions and, at the same time, produce sustainable chemicals or fuels is a challenging and promising alternative to meet global demand for chemicals and energy. Hence, the chemical incorporation and conversion of CO₂ into valuable chemicals has received much attention in the last decade, since CO₂ is an abundant, inexpensive, nontoxic, nonflammable, and renewable one-carbon building block. Nevertheless, CO₂ is the most oxidized form of carbon, thermodynamically the most stable form and kinetically inert. Consequently, the chemical conversion of CO₂ requires highly reactive, rich-energy substrates, highly stable products to be formed or harder reaction conditions. The use of catalysts constitutes an important tool in the development of sustainable chemistry, since catalysts increase the rate of the reaction without modifying the overall standard Gibbs energy in the reaction. Therefore, special attention has been paid to catalysis, and in particular to heterogeneous catalysis because of its environmentally friendly and recyclable nature attributed to simple separation and recovery, as well as its applicability to continuous reactor operations. Focusing on heterogeneous catalysts, we decided to center on zeolite and ordered mesoporous materials due to their high thermal and chemical stability and versatility, which make them good candidates for the design and development of catalysts for CO₂ conversion. In the present review, we analyze the state of the art in the last 25 years and the potential opportunities for using zeolite and OMS (ordered mesoporous silica) based materials to convert CO₂ into valuable chemicals essential for our daily lives and fuels, and to pave the way towards reducing carbon footprint. In this review, we have compiled, to the best of our knowledge, the different reactions involving catalysts based on zeolites and OMS to convert CO₂ into cyclic and dialkyl carbonates, acyclic carbamates, 2-oxazolidones, carboxylic acids, methanol, dimethylether, methane, higher alcohols (C₂₊OH), C₂₊ (gasoline, olefins and aromatics), syngas (RWGS, dry reforming of methane and alcohols), olefins (oxidative dehydrogenation of alkanes) and simple fuels by photoreduction. The use of advanced zeolite and OMS-based materials, and the development of new processes and technologies should provide a new impulse to boost the conversion of CO₂ into chemicals and fuels.

Microwave-Assisted Electrostatically Enhanced Phenol-Catalyzed Synthesis of Oxazolidinones

An electrostatically enhanced phenol is utilized as a straightforward, sustainable, and potent one-component organocatalyst for the atom-economic transformation of epoxides to oxazolidinones under microwave irradiation. Integrating a positively charged center into phenols over a modular one-step preparation gives rise to a bifunctional system with improved acidity and activity, competent in rapid assembly of epoxides and isocyanates under microwave irradiation in a short reaction time (20-60 min). A careful assessment of the efficacy of various positively charged phenols and anilines and the impact of several factors, such as catalyst loading, temperature, and the kind of nucleophile, on catalytic reactivity were examined. Under neat conditions, this one-component catalytic platform was exploited to prepare more than 40 examples of oxazolidinones from a variety of aryl- and alkyl-substituted epoxides and isocyanates within minutes, where up to 96% yield and high degree of selectivity were attained. DFT calculations to achieve reaction barriers for different catalytic routes were conducted to provide mechanistic understanding and corroborated the experimental findings in which concurrent epoxide ring-opening and isocyanate incorporation were proposed.

One-pot synthesis of oxazolidinones and five-membered cyclic carbonates from epoxides and chlorosulfonyl isocyanate: theoretical evidence for an asynchronous concerted pathway

The one-pot reaction of chlorosulfonyl isocyanate (CSI) with epoxides having phenyl, benzyl and fused cyclic alkyl groups in different solvents under mild reaction conditions without additives and catalysts was studied. Oxazolidinones and five-membered cyclic carbonates were obtained in ratios close to 1:1 in the cyclization reactions. The best yields of these compounds were obtained in dichloromethane (DCM). Together with 16 known compounds, two novel oxazolidinone derivatives and two novel cyclic carbonates were synthesized with an efficient and straightforward method. Compared to the existing methods, the synthetic approach presented here provides the following distinct advantageous: being a one-pot reaction with metal-free reagent, having shorter reaction times, good yields and a very simple purification method. Moreover, using the density functional theory (DFT) method at the M06-2X/6-31+G(d,p) level of theory the mechanism of the cycloaddition reactions has been elucidated. The further investigation of the potential energy surfaces associated with two possible channels leading to oxazolidinones and five-membered cyclic carbonates disclosed that the cycloaddition reaction proceeds via an asynchronous concerted mechanism in gas phase and in DCM.

Bifunctional phase-transfer catalysts for synthesis of 2-oxazolidinones from isocyanates and epoxides

A series of bifunctional phase-transfer catalysts (PTCs) were synthesized to catalyze the [3 + 2] coupling reaction of isocyanates and epoxides to afford 2-oxazolidinones in good to high yields (up to 92% yield) using PhCl as a solvent at 100 °C within 12 h. These bifunctional PTCs were easily prepared from commercially available tertiary-primary diamines and isocyanates (or isothiocyanates, mono-squaramides, respectively) in two simple steps with good modularity and demonstrated high efficiency (2.5 mol% catalyst-loading). The synergistic interaction of the quaternary ammonium salt center and hydrogen-bond donor group in the catalyst with the substrate is crucial to this atom-economic reaction.

Intertwined chemistry of hydroxyl hydrogen-bond donors, epoxides and isocyanates in the organocatalytic synthesis of oxazolidinones versus isocyanurates: rational catalytic investigation and mechanistic understanding

The efficiency and chemoselectivity of the cycloaddition of isocyanates to epoxides to afford oxazolidinones were investigated using hydroxyl hydrogen-bond donors as organocatalysts.