Witherspoon E, Ling P, Winchester W, Zhao Q, Ibrahim A, Riley KE, Wang Z. Highly Selective Electrochemical Synthesis of Urea Derivatives Initiated from Oxygen Reduction in Ionic Liquids.
ACS OMEGA 2022;
7:42828-42834. [PMID:
36467946 PMCID:
PMC9713781 DOI:
10.1021/acsomega.2c04748]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2022] [Accepted: 10/18/2022] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
The development of more efficient and sustainable methods for synthesizing substituted urea compounds and directly utilizing CO2 has long been a major focus of synthetic organic chemistry as these compounds serve critical environmental and industrial roles. Herein, we report a green approach to forming the urea compounds directly from CO2 gas and primary amines, triggered by oxygen electroreduction in ionic liquids (ILs). These reactions were carried out under mild conditions, at very low potentials, and achieved high conversion rates. The fact that O2 gas was utilized as the sole catalyst in this electrochemical loop, without additional reagents, is a significant milestone for eco-friendly syntheses of C-N compounds and establishes an effective and green CO2 scavenging method.
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