Dedicated to Paul Kamer, a great scientist and inspiring person. A series of hydroxy-functionalized phosphonium salts were studied as bifunctional catalysts for the conversion of CO 2 with epoxides under mild and solvent-free conditions. The reaction in the presence of a phenol-based phosphonium iodide proceeded via a first order rection kinetic with respect to the substrate. Notably, in contrast to the aliphatic analogue, the phenol-based catalyst showed no product inhibition. The temperature dependence of the reaction rate was investigated, and the activation energy for the model reaction was determined from an Arrhenius-plot (E a = 39.6 kJ mol À 1). The substrate scope was also evaluated. Under the optimized reaction conditions, 20 terminal epoxides were converted at room temperature to the corresponding cyclic carbonates, which were isolated in yields up to 99 %. The reaction is easily scalable and was performed on a scale up to 50 g substrate. Moreover, this method was applied in the synthesis of the antitussive agent dropropizine starting from epichlorohydrin and phenylpiperazine. Furthermore, DFT calculations were performed to rationalize the mechanism and the high efficiency of the phenol-based phosphonium iodide catalyst. The calculation confirmed the activation of the epoxide via hydrogen bonding for the iodide salt, which facilitates the ring-opening step. Notably, the effective Gibbs energy barrier regarding this step is 97 kJ mol À 1 for the bromide and 72 kJ mol À 1 for the iodide salt, which explains the difference in activity.

A one-pot protocol for the fluorosulfation and Suzuki coupling of phenols is described.

The synthesis of three bifunctional phosphonium salts bearing perfluorinated side chains is reported. These compounds were employed as catalysts for the synthesis of cyclic carbonates from epoxides and CO 2 . The most efficient catalyst comprised a phenolic substructure and allowed the synthesis of various carbonates at room temperature and a CO 2 pressure as low as 0.1 MPa. The reaction could be performed in perfluorodecalin which in some cases led to improved yields and facilitated the separation of the catalyst. Furthermore, the isolation from the reaction mixture and recyclability of two catalysts was evaluated. However, the activity of the recycled catalysts gradually decreases due to partial decomposition. In total 16 cyclic carbonates were prepared in yields up to 97%.

We report a chemoselective Suzuki–Miyaura reaction protocol of using bromophenyl fluorosulfonate as building block for the preparation of unsymmetrical terphenyls. The chemoselective cross-coupling of bromophenyl fluorosulfonate and arylboronic acids can be achieved by controlling base species without using any ligands. Under this methodology, various of m- and p-unsymmetrical terphenyls were obtained in moderate to good yields.