Engineering cellulose into water soluble poly(protic ionic liquid) electrolytes in the DBU/CO2/DMSO solvent system as an organocatalyst for the Knoevenagel condensation reaction

The facile design and preparation of polyelectrolytes is a frontier topic in the fields of polymer science, energy storage devices and catalysis. Herein, linear water soluble cellulosic poly(protic ionic liquid) (CPIL) electrolytes were facilely and atom economically prepared after the dissolution of cellulose in the newly developed DBU/CO2/DMSO solvent system, followed by the simple addition of succinic anhydride under mild conditions. The DBU not only participated in the dissolution of cellulose as a solvent component, but also acted as an organocatalyst for the acylation reaction of cellulose with succinic anhydride, as well as a cation component in the targeted CPIL electrolytes. The reaction was optimized, and the effect of the reaction conditions on the chemical and physical properties of the CPILs was investigated. And then, as a proof of concept, the CPIL electrolyte aqueous solution was successfully used as the catalytic reaction media for the Knoevenagel condensation reaction. It was found that the reaction was homogeneous at the beginning, and the products could precipitate out from the media with the proceeding of the reaction, thus affording satisfactory filtration yields ranging from 56.7% to 93.8%. The solution properties of the CPIL aqueous solution were primarily investigated towards an in-depth understanding of the catalytic mechanism, by which a synergetic catalytic mechanism of the CPILs was proposed, and the reaction started with a nucleophilic addition reaction, and was then followed by a fast dehydration reaction. Finally, the direct reusability potential of the CPIL aqueous solution after the product filtration was also primarily investigated for the Knoevenagel condensation reaction.