Carbon-supported CeNCl as an efficient catalyst for CO2 cycloaddition

The cycloaddition reaction of CO2 with epoxide not only effectively reduces the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, but also has excellent industrial application value and up to 100% atom utilization, but there are difficulties in separation and recovery of traditional homogeneous catalysts, harsh reaction conditions of traditional heterogeneous catalysts, and activation of CO2 molecules. In this paper, an easily synthesized heterogeneous catalyst CeNCl/C was used to catalyze the cycloaddition reaction of CO2 with styrene oxide, with a high yield of 92.7%, a high selectivity of 96.7%, a turnover numbers (TON) value of 349, and a good stability demonstrated in six cycle tests (equivalent to 216 h of testing). Through comprehensive studies, it was shown that CeNCl/C contains Lewis acid-base centers as active centers, which can effectively reduce the energy barrier required for ring opening of the reaction substrate, enhance the adsorption and activation of CO2, and promote the formation of intermediates, which led to the acquisition of excellent catalytic activity.