Impact of carbon dioxide pressurization on liquid phase organic reactions: A case study on Heck and Diels-Alder reactions

Heck coupling reactions of methyl acrylate with various aryl bromides have been investigated using a Pd/TPP catalyst in toluene under pressurized CO2 conditions up to 13 MPa. Although CO2 is not a reactant, the pressurization of the reaction liquid phase with CO2 has positive and negative impacts on the rate of Heck coupling depending on the structures of the substrates examined. In the case of either 2-bromoacetophenone or 2-bromocinnamate, the conversion has a maximum at a CO2 pressure of about 3 MPa; for the former, it is much larger by a factor of 3 compared with that under ambient pressure. For 2-bromobenzene, in contrast, the conversion is minimized at a similar CO2 pressure, being half compared with that at ambient pressure