Facile and Sustainable Synthesis of Erythritol bis(carbonate), a Valuable Monomer for Non-Isocyanate Polyurethanes (NIPUs)

Recently, R. Mülhaupt et al. introduced the first high yielding synthesis of erythritol bis(carbonate) from erythritol with diphenyl carbonate (DPC) as reagent. They utilized it as monomer for the synthesis of non-isocyanate polyurethanes (NIPUs). Here, we present a significantly more sustainable procedure for the carbonate formation regarding solvent, carbonyl source, reaction temperature, reaction time, reduced pressure during the reaction, simplicity of the workup as well as recycling of reagents. Catalysed by triazabicyclodecene (TBD), dimethyl carbonate as solvent as well as reagent leads to selective product formation and facile product separation by filtration. After addition of new starting materials, the mixture of catalyst and DMC was reused up to 8 times without loss of catalytic activity.