Comparative studies on the performance of immobilized quaternary ammonium salt catalysts for the addition of carbon dioxide to glycidyl methacrylate

The addition of carbon dioxide to glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) was investigated in a semi-batch reactor using immobilized quaternary ammonium chloride catalysts. Five different catalysts were prepared with the following supports: (1) soluble poly(ST-co-VBC)[C1], (2) insoluble poly(ST-DVB-VBC)[C2], (3) macroporous poly(ST-DVB-VBC)[C3], (4) poly(ST-co-VBC)-MMT[C4], (5) modified MCM-41[C5]. The addition of carbon dioxide to GMA can be considered as pseudo first-order with the concentration of GMA. The soluble poly(ST-co-VBC)-supported catalyst containing benzyltributylammonium chloride group showed the highest reaction rate. The order of the pseudo first-order rate constant for the catalysts was C1 > C3 > C2 > C4 > C5. The activation energy for the C1–C5 catalysts was 11.5, 28.1, 20.8, 36.6 and 39.3 kJ/mol, respectively. The immobilized catalysts can be reused for at least four successive runs without any considerable loss of their initial reactivities.