An Aminopyridinium Ionic Liquid: A Simple and Effective Bifunctional Organocatalyst for Carbonate Synthesis from Carbon Dioxide and Epoxides.

An aminopyridinium ionic liquid is presented as a green, tunable, and active metal-free one-component catalytic system for the atom-efficient transformation of oxiranes and CO to cyclic carbonates. Inclusion of a positively charged moiety into aminopyridines, through a simple single-step synthesis, provides a one-component ionic liquid catalytic system with superior activity; effective in ring opening of epoxide, CO inclusion, and stabilization of oxoanionic intermediates. An efficiency assessment of a variety of positively charged aminopyridines was pursued, and the impact of temperature, catalyst loading, and the kind of nucleophile on the catalytic performance was also investigated. Under solvent-free conditions, this bifunctional organocatalytic system was used for the preparation of 18 examples of cyclic carbonates from a broad range of alkyl- and aryl-substituted oxiranes and CO , where up to 98 % yield and high selectivity were achieved. DFT calculations validated a mechanism in which nucleophilic ring-opening and CO inclusion occur simultaneously towards cyclic carbonate formation.