From CO oxidation to CO2 activation: an unexpected catalytic activity of polymer-supported nanogold.

A simple, clean, safe, and reproducible catalyst system, polymer-supported nanogold, was successfully developed for the fixation of CO2 to cyclic carbonate and for the carbonylation of amines to disubstituted ureas with unprecedented catalytic activity (TOF > 50 000 mol/mol/h and TOFP approximately 3000 mol/mol/h, respectively). To the best of our knowledge, it was the first to report that nanogold catalysts have exclusive catalytic activity for activation of carbon dioxide, and that the catalytic activity of the polymer-immobilized nanogold catalysts could be controlled by the particle size of the nanogold.