Scientists have designed an environmentally friendly catalyst that can convert carbon dioxide into useful intermediates for making batteries, plastics and drugs.

Carbon dioxide has the potential to provide a vast and cheap source of carbon. Turning it into useful products would also reduce its environmental impact as a greenhouse gas. Scientists have shown that ionic liquids are selective catalysts for converting carbon dioxide into synthetic intermediates called cyclic carbonates, but it is difficult to separate and recycle the liquid catalyst.

Silica-supported ionic liquids catalyse the chemical fixation of carbon dioxide with epoxides to form cyclic carbonates

Now Dae-Won Park and colleagues at Pusan National University, Busan, South Korea, have found that ionic liquids grafted on to a silica surface retain good catalytic activity and can be easily removed from reaction mixtures and reused. They also found that the catalytic activity could be changed by varying the length of the alkyl chain on the ionic liquid cation.

'One important finding of this work was the ability to tune the reactivity of the catalyst,' says Mark White, an ionic liquids expert at Mississippi State University, US. 'The value of this work is showing how the known chemistry of these systems can be exploited.'

Park expects that this eco-friendly supported catalyst will 'contribute to the sustainable development of chemical processes'. The next step is to add specific functional groups to the catalyst to increase the selection and activity of reactions, he adds.

Harriet Brewerton

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