Docking of tetra-methyl zirconium to the surface of silica: a well-defined pre-catalyst for conversion of CO2 to cyclic carbonates

Walid Al Maksoud; Aya Saidi; Manoja K Samantaray; Edy Abou-Hamad; Albert Poater; Samy Ould-Chikh; Xianrong Guo; Erjia Guan; Tao Ma; Bruce C Gates; Jean-Marie Basset

doi:10.1039/c9cc07383c

Docking of tetra-methyl zirconium to the surface of silica: a well-defined pre-catalyst for conversion of CO₂ to cyclic carbonates

Chem Commun (Camb). 2020 Mar 24;56(24):3528-3531. doi: 10.1039/c9cc07383c.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ King Abdullah University of Science & Technology, Physical Science and Engineering KAUST, 23955-6900, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. jeanmarie.basset@kaust.edu.sa manoja.samantaray@kaust.edu.sa.
² Imaging and Characterization Core Lab, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, KAUST, Thuwal, 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia.
³ Institut de Química Computacional i Catàlisi and Departament de Química, Universitat de Girona, c/Maria Aurèlia Capmany 69, 17003 Girona, Catalonia, Spain.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California at Davis, California, 95616, USA.
⁵ Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California at Davis, California, 95616, USA. bcgates@ucdavis.edu.

PMID: 32103206
DOI: 10.1039/c9cc07383c

Abstract

The metal complex (Zr(CH3)4(THF)2) has been fully synthesized, characterized and grafted onto partially dehydroxylated silica to give two surface species [([triple bond, length as m-dash]Si-O-)Zr(CH3)3(THF)2] (minor) and [([triple bond, length as m-dash]Si-O-)2Zr(CH3)2(THF)2] (major) which have been characterized by SS NMR, IR, and elemental analysis. These supported pre-catalysts exhibit the best conversion of CO2 to cyclic carbonates, as compared to the previously reported SOMC catalysts.