Polycarbonates are found in a variety of common products in daily life due to their favorable mechanical and electrical properties. In addition, they are widely used in biomedical areas due to their stability and biological inertness. Therefore, the production of polycarbonates became an important industrial process in the past decades. However, the current industrial process usually requires toxic phosgene gas as a starting material. Thus, the environmentally benign route by using metal catalyzed couplings of epoxides and CO_(2) to produce polycarbonates has received attention from researchers. In this dissertation, metal catalyzed CO_(2)/cyclic ether copolymerization, depolymerization of polycarbonates, and the equilibria between polycarbonate and corresponding six-membered cyclic carbonate will be investigated. First, the Co(III) catalyzed copolymerizations of CO_(2) and various epoxides with electron-withdrawing substituents to afford polycarbonates are examined. Comparative kinetic studies were performed via in situ infrared measurements as a function of temperature to assess the activation barriers for the production of cyclic carbonate versus copolymer involving electronically different epoxides: styrene oxide, epichlorohydrin, and propylene oxide. Thermodynamically stable cyclic carbonate byproducts are produced during the course of the reaction from the degradations of propagating polymer chains. The depolymerization reactions of several polycarbonates produced from the completely alternating copolymerization of styrene oxide, epichlorohydrin, propylene oxide, cyclohexene oxide, indene oxide, and cyclopentene oxide with carbon dioxide have been investigated. Various reaction pathways can be found under different reaction conditions, including process involving chain-end backbiting and radical intermediates. Temperature-dependent kinetic studies have provided energy of activation barriers for cyclic carbonate formation. In addition, the generated monomeric materials from the degradation of select polycarbonates show the possibility of chemical recycling of plastic waste. For the copolymers made from CO_(2) and oxetane derivatives, this study focuses on the influence of steric hindrance in the 3-position of the monomer oxetane. The (salen)CrCl/onium salt catalyzed coupling reactions of these oxetane derivatives and carbon dioxide are reported. Depolymerizations of copolymers to their corresponding cyclic carbonates were also studied. In addition, several six-membered cyclic carbonates were synthesized to examine their equilibria between monomeric cyclic carbonates and their corresponding polycarbonates.

<p>Medium-sized cyclic ethers are challenging synthetic targets due to enthalpic and entropic barriers. Methods for the stereoselective synthesis of &#945;,&#945;&#900;-disubstituted medium-sized cyclic ethers began to appear with the discovery of naturally-occurring, ladder-shaped polycyclic ethers, such as brevetoxin B, and monocyclic ethers, such as (+)-laurencin. Despite the progress made in this field, limitations remain including competing formation of smaller ring sizes and scarcity of catalytic methods. Our aim has been to develop stereoselective syntheses for 7- and 8-membered cyclic ethers which have potential for application in natural product synthesis. The C-O bond disconnection was selected for the methods described within because cyclization and stereoinduction could be achieved simultaneously. In the case of 7-membered cyclic ethers, an organocatalytic oxa-conjugate addition reaction promoted by the gem-disubstituent (Thorpe&#8722;Ingold) effect has been developed to stereoselectively provide &#945;,&#945;&#8242;-trans-oxepanes. A gold(I)-catalyzed alkoxylation reaction has also allowed access to &#945;,&#945;&#8242;-cis-oxocenes. This method has been probed for feasibility in the stereoselective synthesis of (+)-intricenyne, an 8-membered cyclic ether belonging to the C15 nonterpenoid acetogenin natural product class. These methods have the potential to become general and efficient routes to highly functionalized oxepanes and oxocenes.</p> / Dissertation

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Nosso grupo de pesquisa vem se dedicado, há vários anos, ao estudo das reações de ciclização eletrofílica de substratos insaturados que contêm um nucleófilo interno (oxigênio ou nitrogênio). Este trabalho teve como objetivo obter derivados de éteres cíclicos de cinco e seis membros diferentemente funcionalizados. Compostos 1,3-dicarbonílicos e ß-hidróxi carbonílicos, contendo dupla ligação em posição apropriada, foram submetidos à reação de ciclização mediada tanto por iodo quanto por dimetildioxirana. De maneira semelhante, ß-enamino ésteres alquenilados foram submetidos à reação de iodociclização visando à síntese de diidropirróis, pirrolidínas e tetraidroindóis. Os heterociclos funcionalizados com iodo foram submetidos à reação de desidroiodação, promovida por base, fornecendo os correspondentes produtos de eliminação. / Our research group has been studying, for several years, eletrophilic cyclization reactions of unsaturated substrates bearing internal nucleophiles such as oxygen or nitrogen. This work aimed to obtain five and six membered cyclic ether derivatives differently functionalized. 1,3-Dicarbonyl and ß-hydroxy carbonyl compounds bearing double bonds suitably positioned were submitted to cyclization reaction mediated by either iodine or dimethyldioxirane. Similarly, alkenyl substituted ß-enamino esters were also prepared and submitted to iodo-cyclization reaction leading to dihydropyrrols, to pyrrolidines or to tetrahydroindols. The heterocyclic compounds bearing iodine were submitted to the corresponding dehydroiodination reaction mediated by base, furnishing elimination products

Nosso grupo de pesquisa vem se dedicado, há vários anos, ao estudo das reações de ciclização eletrofílica de substratos insaturados que contêm um nucleófilo interno (oxigênio ou nitrogênio). Este trabalho teve como objetivo obter derivados de éteres cíclicos de cinco e seis membros diferentemente funcionalizados. Compostos 1,3-dicarbonílicos e ß-hidróxi carbonílicos, contendo dupla ligação em posição apropriada, foram submetidos à reação de ciclização mediada tanto por iodo quanto por dimetildioxirana. De maneira semelhante, ß-enamino ésteres alquenilados foram submetidos à reação de iodociclização visando à síntese de diidropirróis, pirrolidínas e tetraidroindóis. Os heterociclos funcionalizados com iodo foram submetidos à reação de desidroiodação, promovida por base, fornecendo os correspondentes produtos de eliminação. / Our research group has been studying, for several years, eletrophilic cyclization reactions of unsaturated substrates bearing internal nucleophiles such as oxygen or nitrogen. This work aimed to obtain five and six membered cyclic ether derivatives differently functionalized. 1,3-Dicarbonyl and ß-hydroxy carbonyl compounds bearing double bonds suitably positioned were submitted to cyclization reaction mediated by either iodine or dimethyldioxirane. Similarly, alkenyl substituted ß-enamino esters were also prepared and submitted to iodo-cyclization reaction leading to dihydropyrrols, to pyrrolidines or to tetrahydroindols. The heterocyclic compounds bearing iodine were submitted to the corresponding dehydroiodination reaction mediated by base, furnishing elimination products