A novel route for synthesis of styrene carbonate using styrene and CO2 as substrates over basic resin R201 supported Au catalyst

This paper introduces a novel and convenient synthetic route for styrene carbonate from styrene and CO2 over nano-gold catalyst supported R201 resin. The simple synthesis route avoids the preliminary synthesis and isolation of intermediate styrene oxide, which couples the two sequential reactions of epoxidation of styrene and cycloaddition of CO2 to epoxide into one pot. With Au/R201 catalyst, synthetic process has great influence on the carbonate yield. By multistep protocol the carbonate yield reaches 51% with anhydrous TBHP as oxidant. In the synthesis, CO2 acts as both a reagent and a solvent and the use of additional organic solvents can be avoided. The pronounced cooperative effect of quaternary ammonium cation of the support and nano-gold particle results in its good performance in the one-pot synthesis of styrene carbonate directly from styrene. The simple one-component heterogeneous catalyst Au/R201 was readily separated after the reaction and reused without catalyst leaching, which is of great interest in industrial potential.