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

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(C 3 H 6 O 3 )) 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 ZnCl 2 , ZnSO 4 and Zn(NO 3 ) 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(NH 3 ) x (OAc) 2 , which was determined from IR and TOF-SIMS studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]