Consecutive carbonylation and decarboxylation of glycerol with urea for the synthesis of glycidol via glycerol carbonate

Abstract

Zn(OAc)2-catalyzed carbonylation and decarboxylation of glycerol and urea for the synthesis of glycidol were conducted at 150 °C, 2.7 kPa for 2 h and 170 °C, 2.0 kPa for 1.5 h, respectively. When the reaction conducted in a one-pot consecutive way, the yield of glycidol was 20%. However, when the formed zinc glycerolate (Zn(C3H6O3)) was filtered out after the carbonylation, the yield increased to 50% with respect to the amount of glycerol, whereas the yields of glycidol were very low when other zinc salts such as ZnCl2, ZnSO4 and Zn(NO3)2, were used as catalysts. The high catalytic activity of Zn(OAc)2 for this carbonylation and decarboxylation of glycerol and urea could be ascribed to the formation of Zn(NH3)x(OAc)2, which was determined from IR and TOF-SIMS studies.