Hollow spherical ZnO particles with porous exterior surface are successfully synthesized and employed as a cost effective heterogeneous catalyst for CO₂ fixation in a wide range of epoxides at atmospheric pressure and room temperature to form cyclic carbonates. In fact, conversion of carbon-di-oxide into value aided chemicals is one of the major areas of contemporary research. This versatile material is also capable to catalyze acylation of amines in solvent free condition. The end products of both the reactions i.e. cyclic carbonate and N-acylated amines have huge industrial importance. The pristine ZnO nanomaterial without incorporation of metal nanoparticles, has shown excellent reusability up to five consecutive reaction cycles without considerable loss in its efficiency which is quite encouraging for industrial realization.

成功地合成了具有多孔外表面的空心球形ZnO颗粒，并将其用作具有成本效益的CO ₂非均相催化剂在大气压和室温下固定在多种环氧化物中，形成环状碳酸酯。实际上，将二氧化碳转化为有价值的化学物质是当代研究的主要领域之一。这种多用途的材料还能够在无溶剂条件下催化胺的酰化。这两个反应的最终产物，即环状碳酸酯和N-酰化胺，在工业上具有重要的意义。不含金属纳米颗粒的原始ZnO纳米材料在五个连续的反应循环中均具有出色的可重复使用性，而效率却没有显着降低，这对于工业实现而言是非常令人鼓舞的。