Bimetallic oxide catalysis meets silanol-enhanced synergy: A winning combination for efficient CO2 fixation by cycloaddition with styrene oxide

• Method to disperse mixed metal oxide effectively on silica support was formulated. • Silanol groups act as anchoring sites for better dispersion of mixed metal oxide . • Sn-Ni/SBA-15-OH showed substantially higher activity than pure Sn-Ni oxide. • The high activity of Sn-Ni/SBA-15-OH was retained even after five cycles. The bimetallic oxide dispersed on silanol rich SBA-15-OH was designed for the synthesis of cyclic carbonates from epoxides and CO 2 . The SBA-15-OH was synthesized via desilication and active metals were loaded by sol-gel method. Pure Sn-Ni oxide with a low surface area and lesser activity was modified by dispersing it on a high surface area SBA-15-OH. The different characterization techniques such as XRD, N 2 -sorption, CO 2 and NH 3 -TPD, H 2 -TPR, SEM-EDX, TEM and XPS confirmed that the surface silanol group acts as anchoring site for the enhanced metal oxide-support interaction. Supported Sn-Ni oxide exhibited 16-fold better activity than pure Sn-Ni oxide, due to improved dispersion, which enhances the accessibility of reactants to the catalytic sites. Under the optimized reaction conditions 10Sn5Ni/SBA-15-OH gave 92.9 % styrene oxide conversion and 84.3 % selectivity for styrene carbonate. The catalyst is recyclable and the flexibility of the catalyst is tested for different epoxides with CO 2. The Sn-Ni oxide dispersed on silanol rich SBA-15-OH catalyst was designed for the synthesis of cyclic carbonate from CO 2 and epoxides. The surface silanol group acts as anchoring sites for better metal oxide–support interaction, which resulted into enhanced catalytic activity compared to pure Sn-Ni oxide by 15 fold.