Antibiotics from Carbon Dioxide: Sustainable Pathways to Pharmaceutically Relevant Cyclic Carbamates

As a versatile and sustainable C-1 source, carbon dioxide can substitute toxic reagents such as isocyanates and phosgene in many organic syntheses. In particular, it readily couples with amines to give various carbamate species. This reactivity can be exploited in the synthesis of cyclic carbamates, which are structural motifs found in many antibiotics and other pharmaceutically relevant or otherwise high value-added compounds. In this Minireview, we explore the four major categories of carbon dioxide-based syntheses of cyclic carbamates: cycloaddition of CO2 into aziridines, epoxide-based methods, cyclization of unsaturated compounds, and cyclization of amino alcohols.