Abstract: A green and facile approach to swep is reported in this paper. With cheap, easily available and recyclable nonmetal selenium as the catalyst and CO instead of virulent phosgene as the carbonylation reagent, swep was obtained directly for the first time by one-pot selenium-catalyzed oxidative carbonylation of 3,4-dichloroaniline with methanol. The effects of reaction pressure, molar ratio of 3,4-dichloroaniline to methanol, content of selenium, solvent, reaction time, reaction temperature and co-catalyst on the reaction were investigated. The optimal reaction conditions for preparing the target product swep with a yield of 67% are as followings when the reaction is conducted in a 100 mL autoclave:the reaction pressure is 3 MPa(n(CO)∶n(O2)=9∶1), contents of 3,4-dichloroaniline, methanol, selenium, ethyl acetate and triethylamine are 5 mmol, 75 mmol, 0.25 mmol, 10 mL and 10 mmol, respectively, the reaction time is 5 h, and the reaction temperature is 130 ℃. This method has the merits of short synthetic route, green approach and easy operation.

Key words: selenium-catalyzed, dichloroaniline, oxidative carbonylation, swep