The design of efficient metal catalysts for the selective coupling of epoxides and carbon dioxide to afford completely alternating copolymers has made significant gains over the past decade. Hence, it is becoming increasingly clear that this "greener" route to polycarbonates has the potential to supplement or supplant current processes for the production of these important thermoplastics, which involve the condensation polymerization of diols and phosgene or organic carbonates. On the basis of the experiences in our laboratory, this Account summarizes our efforts at optimizing (salen)CrIIIX catalysts for the selective formation of polycarbonates from alicyclic and aliphatic epoxides with CO2. An iterative catalyst design process is employed in which the salen ligand, initiator, cocatalyst, and reaction conditions are systematically varied, with the reaction rates and product selectivity being monitored by in situ infrared spectroscopy.

The insertion of carbon dioxide into the Mn−O bond of fac-(CO)3(dppe)MnOCH3 (1) was observed to occur instantaneously at −78 °C by in situ infrared spectroscopy. The product of carboxylation of 1, fac-(CO)3(dppe)MnOC(O)OCH3 (2), underwent decarboxylation with a first-order rate constant of 1.49 × 10-4 s-1 at 23 °C. The kinetic parameters for this process were determined by trapping the intermediate produced upon CO2 extrusion, complex 1, with COS to provide the very stable fac-(CO)3(dppe)MnSC(O)OCH3 (3) derivative. The structure of 3 was determined by single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis, establishing the presence of the Mn−S bond.