Synthesis of cyclic carbonate through microwave irradiation using silica-supported ionic liquids: Effect of variation in the silica support

Microwave-assisted cycloaddition of CO2 to phenyl glycidyl ether (PGE) was carried out under solvent-free conditions using silica-supported ionic liquids as catalysts. Various immobilized ionic liquid catalysts were prepared with different silica supports such as commercial and amorphous silica, SBA-15, and MCM-41. The effect of these supports on the cycloaddition reactions of CO2 to PGE was studied under optimized reaction conditions of microwave power and irradiation time. The catalytic activity was found to depend strongly on the morphology of the support. Comparative studies with conventional heating reactions showed that microwave-induced reactions were greatly superior, with very high PEG conversion and high selectivity of cyclic carbonate within 15 min of reaction time. (C) 2010 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.