AUTHOR=Xia Shu-Mei , Chen Kai-Hong , Fu Hong-Chen , He Liang-Nian TITLE=Ionic Liquids Catalysis for Carbon Dioxide Conversion With Nucleophiles JOURNAL=Frontiers in Chemistry VOLUME=6 YEAR=2018 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/chemistry/articles/10.3389/fchem.2018.00462 DOI=10.3389/fchem.2018.00462 ISSN=2296-2646 ABSTRACT=

Carbon dioxide, as a promising C1 synthon, has attracted great interest in organic synthesis. Due to the thermodynamic stability and kinetic inertness of CO2, developing efficient strategies for CO2 activation and subsequent conversion is very crucial. In this context, Ionic liquids (ILs) show great potential for capturing and activating CO2 owing to their unique structures and properties, making them become ideal alternatives to volatile organic solvents and/or catalysts for CO2 transformation. This minireview aims at summarizing ILs-promoted reactions of CO2 with N-nucleophiles (primary amines)/O-nucleophiles (primary alcohols, water). Two catalytic systems i.e., metal/ILs binary systems such as Cu/ILs systems and Ag/ILs systems as well as single ILs systems including anion-functionalized ILs and bifunctionalized ILs have been developed for CO2 catalytic conversion, for instance, carboxylative cyclization of nucleophiles e.g., propargylic alcohols, amines, 2-aminobenzonitriles and o-aminobenzenethiol, and formylation of amines or 2-aminothiophenols with hydrosilanes to afford various value-added chemicals e.g., cyclic carbamates, unsymmetrical organic carbonates, α-hydroxyl ketones, and benzimidazolones. In a word, IL could provide a powerful tool for efficient CO2 utilization.