Polystyrene-Supported Amino Acids as Efficient Catalyst for Chemical Fixation of Carbon Dioxide

Four new polystyrene-supported amino acids have been synthesized and applied to the chemical fixation of carbon dioxide for the first time. Two series of experiments with polystyrene-supported threonine (PS-Thr) and polystyrene-supported tyrosine (PS-Tyr) as catalyst. respectively, were conducted to study the effect of the reaction conditions on the carboxylation of propylene oxide/carbon dioxide. There was no considerable decrease in the yield of propylene carbonate after the polystyrene-supported amino acids were used five times, indicating that these catalysts are very stable. It was demonstrated that these catalysts were very efficient in the carboxylation of various epoxides and aziridines with carbon dioxide under mild conditions without any solvents. The mechanism for this carboxylation is also discussed.