Silver-catalyzed incorporation of carbon dioxide into propargylic alcohols

The combined use of a catalytic amount of silver acetate and a stoichiometric amount of DBU efficiently catalyzed the incorporation of CO2 under mild reaction conditions into a wide range of propargylic alcohols bearing a terminal or an internal triple bond to afford the corresponding cyclic carbonates in high-to-excellent yields. All the cyclic carbonates obtained from the reaction were found to be single isomers. The geometries were determined to be (Z) by X-ray crystal structure analysis and NOE experiments. ((C) Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2007).