Facile Construction of Carboxyl-Functionalized Ionic Polymer towards Synergistic Catalytic Cycloaddition of Carbon Dioxide into Cyclic Carbonates

The development of bifunctional ionic polymers as heterogeneous catalysts for effective, cocatalyst- and metal-free cycloaddition of carbon dioxide into cyclic carbonates has attracted increasing attention. However, facile fabrication of such polymers having high numbers of ionic active sites, suitable types of hydrogen bond donors (HBDs), and controlled spatial positions of dual active sites remains a challenging task. Herein, imidazolium-based ionic polymers with hydroxyl/carboxyl groups and high ionic density were facilely prepared by a one-pot quaternization reaction. Catalytic evaluation demonstrated that the presence of HBDs (hydroxyl or carboxyl) could enhance the catalytic activities of ionic polymers significantly toward the CO(2) cycloaddition reaction. Among the prepared catalysts, carboxyl-functionalized ionic polymer (PIMBr-COOH) displayed the highest catalytic activity (94% yield) in the benchmark cycloaddition reaction of CO(2) and epichlorohydrin, which was higher than hydroxyl-functionalized ionic polymer (PIMBr-OH, 76% yield), and far exceeded ionic polymer without HBDs groups (PIMBr, 54% yield). Furthermore, PIMBr-COOH demonstrated good recyclability and wide substrate tolerance. Under ambient CO(2) pressure, a number of epoxides were smoothly cycloadded into cyclic carbonates. Additionally, density functional theory (DFT) calculation verified the formation of strong hydrogen bonds between epoxide and the HBDs of ionic polymers. Furthermore, a possible mechanism was proposed based on the synergistic effect between carboxyl and Br(−) functionalities. Thus, a facile, one-pot synthetic strategy for the construction of bifunctional ionic polymers was developed for CO(2) fixation.