Direct assembly of 2-oxazolidinones by chemical fixation of carbon dioxide

Abstract

The reaction of β- and γ-haloamines with carbon dioxide to give pharmaceutically relevant 2-oxazolidinones and 1,3-dioxazin-2-ones, was found to proceed efficiently in the presence of a base and in the absence of catalyst. After optimization of reaction conditions, the system was successfully expanded to a variety of haloamines, even at multigram scale. The reaction was further studied in silico by DFT calculations.

Keywords: 2-oxazolidones; antibiotics; carbon dioxide activation; carbon dioxide fixation; density functional calculations.