Since 1994 pyridinium has been known as an efficient electrocatalyst for the reduction of carbon dioxide to methanol via a sequential 6 electron, 6 proton process.  There has been much speculation of the mechanism for the catalytic system including that a surface is required for the reduction to take place.  A recent paper from our group has shown that a homogeneous pathway is possible and can be driven by light.  Current work in this area has shown that an intermolecular system consisting of a ruthenium chromophore and the pyridinium catalyst is capable of reducing carbon dioxide photochemically to methanol and formate.  Currently work from our lab has shown that we can incorporate this catalyst into a single molecule with the chromophore and maintain the ability to reduce carbon dioxide to methanol and formate both electrochemically and photochemically.  These systems have shown that the pyridinium catalyst can be incorporated into other molecules and still maintain functionality.

Electrochemical and photochemical reduction of carbon dioxide to methanol and formate by ruthenium polypyridyl complexes containing a pyridine group

247th National Meeting (2014)

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