Ionic Polymer Microspheres Bearing a CoIII-Salen Moiety as a Bifunctional Heterogeneous Catalyst for the Efficient Cycloaddition of CO2 and Epoxides

We report a unique strategy to obtain the bifunctional heterogeneous catalyst TBB-Bpy@Salen-Co (TBB=1,2,4,5-tetrakis(bromomethyl)benzene, Bpy=4,4'-bipyridine, Salen-Co=N,N'-bis({4-dimethylamino}salicylidene)ethylene-diamino cobalt(III) acetate) by combining a cross-linked ionic polymer with a Co-III-salen Schiff base. The catalyst showed extra high activity for CO2 fixation under mild, solvent-free reaction conditions with no requirement for a co-catalyst. The synthesized catalyst possessed distinctive spherical structural features, abundant halogen Br- anions with good leaving group ability, and accessible Lewis acidic Co metal centers. These unique features, together with the synergistic role of the Co and Br- functional sites, allowed TBB-Bpy@Salen-Co to exhibit enhanced catalytic conversion of CO2 into cyclic carbonates relative to the corresponding monofunctional analogues. This catalyst can be easily recovered and recycled five times without significant leaching of Co or loss of activity. Moreover, based on our experimental results and previous work, a synergistic cycloaddition reaction mechanism was proposed.