Utilization of CO2 via Catalysis in Ionic Liquid Phases

This is a proposal for a three-year KMB project for the development and understanding of Supported Ionic Liquid Phase catalysts for the production of carbamates from CO2, arylamines and alcohols, and the production of dimethylcarbonate (DMC) from CO2 and methanol. Project support will come from the industrial partners Huntsman and Sasol. Both carbamates and DMC are industrially important chemicals for a wide range of applications. Since highly toxic phosgene is usually used in their syntheses, there is a pressing need to discover more environmentally-friendly routes to these products. Together with the application of ionic liquids, this project has a strong focus on sustainable chemistry. The scientific basis for the proposal are recent results showi ng enhanced catalysis for these reactions in ionic liquids, yet with yields, selectivities and conversions which are still outside the range necessary for commercial development. The project will first test the literature reactions to establish the exper imental procedures and analytical methods. This will be followed by the development of new catalyst/ionic liquid systems which show improved yields for the targeted reactions. The improved catalyst/ionic liquid systems will then be adapted to supported variants. The primary methodology of these two stages of the proposed research is the use of our in-house developed high-throughput technologies. The ability to tune the chemical and physical properties of ionic liquids is a particularly intriguing, yet challenging, advance in catalyst technology. Because of the large variation in anion and cation, and anticipated synergistic effects between ionic liquid and catalyst and/or support, there will be a large parameter space to explore, a challenge well-sui ted to high-throughput techniques. The final supported ionic liquid phase catalysts will be tested in lab-scale fixed-bed and and continuous flow reactor systems to gauge their suitability for further development.