Triethylamine Hydroiodide as a Simple Yet Effective Bifunctional Catalyst for CO2 Fixation Reactions with Epoxides under Mild Conditions

An efficient synthesis of cyclic carbonates from epoxides and CO 2 under mild reaction conditions was achieved via the use of triethylamine hydroiodide as a simple yet effective bifunctional catalyst. The importance of the bifunctional feature of the catalyst was clearly demonstrated in the present work via control experiments and 1 H NMR studies. The scalability of this catalytic system was also demonstrated.