Zanatta et al. (2023): Direct Air Capture and Integrated Conversion of Carbon Dioxide into Cyclic Carbonates with Basic Organic Salts

Marcileia Zanatta, Eduardo García-Verdugo, Victor Sans IN: ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, 11, 26, https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.3c00890

The efficient valorization of the CO₂ captured could help overcome many techno-economic limitations. Here, the authors present a novel economical methodology for direct air capture and conversion that is able to efficiently convert CO₂ from the air into cyclic carbonates. The new approach employs commercially available basic ionic liquids, works without the need for sophisticated and expensive co-catalysts or sorbents and under mild reaction conditions. The CO₂ from atmospheric air was efficiently captured by IL solution (0.98 molCO₂/mol_IL) and, subsequently, completely converted into cyclic carbonates using epoxides or halohydrins potentially derived from biomass as substrates. A mechanism of conversion was evaluated, which helped to identify relevant reaction intermediates based on halohydrins, and consequently, a 100% selectivity was obtained using the new methodology.

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