Swelling is a very common phenomenon in organic substances.
However,
the swelling behaviors of inorganic substances had rarely been reported.
In this study, a new type of swellable organic–inorganic hybrid
polymer (PIL@CHT) was designed and successfully synthesized through
free-radical copolymerization of polymerizable phosphonium ionic liquid
monomer and vinyl-functionalized hydrotalcite (CHT). The swelling
behaviors of PIL@CHT in various solvents with a wide range of Hansen
solubility parameters (δT) were investigated, and
PIL@CHT exhibited excellent swellable capacity in the solvents with
δT > 24.4 MPa1/2. The swollen state
of
the hybrid PIL@CHT in water presented a network structure with a diameter
of approximately 8–12 μm, and CHT particles were well
dispersed to the channel of PIL. PIL@CHT was applied to catalyze the
CO2-assisted hydration of propylene oxide (PO), in which
a cascade reaction including the cycloaddition of CO2 and
PO and the subsequent hydrolysis of propylene carbonate (PC) occurred.
PIL@CHT, combining the active sites of PIL and CHT, synergistically
catalyzed this cascade reaction and achieved a high yield (93.0%)
and selectivity (98.2%) of 1,2-propanediol (1,2-MPG) under a low H2O/PO ratio of 1.5/1. Moreover, the catalyst could be recycled
seven times without any significant loss of catalytic activities and
had good substrate generality.