Carbon-supported CeNCl as an efficient catalyst for CO₂ cycloaddition

The cycloaddition reaction of CO₂ with epoxide not only effectively reduces the concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere, but also has excellent industrial application value and up to 100% atom utilization, but there are difficulties in separation and recovery of traditional homogeneous catalysts, harsh reaction conditions of traditional heterogeneous catalysts, and activation of CO₂ molecules. In this paper, an easily synthesized heterogeneous catalyst CeNCl/C was used to catalyze the cycloaddition reaction of CO₂ with styrene oxide, with a high yield of 92.7%, a high selectivity of 96.7%, a turnover numbers (TON) value of 349, and a good stability demonstrated in six cycle tests (equivalent to 216 h of testing). Through comprehensive studies, it was shown that CeNCl/C contains Lewis acid-base centers as active centers, which can effectively reduce the energy barrier required for ring opening of the reaction substrate, enhance the adsorption and activation of CO₂, and promote the formation of intermediates, which led to the acquisition of excellent catalytic activity.