The capture of CO2 and its conversion into fuels is a promising strategy for remediating unprecedented atmospheric CO2 levels. For this approach to be feasible, electrocatalysts for the efficient combination of CO2 with H+ and e– must be developed. Owing to their redox flexibility, transition metals have been long been targeted in this role. Recently, interest has re-emerged in the reaction of CO2 with boranes and silanes, in some cases catalyzed by non-metal systems. While potentially useful, the stoichiometric reaction of CO2 with these hydridic reagents does not directly enable the electrochemical conversion of CO2 into energy dense products. We are pursuing strategies for the direct electrochemical synthesis of borohydrides through the design of redox-active transition metal/borane hybrids. Herein, we report the successful application of this strategy to the reduction of CO2 to formate.

Carbon dioxide reduction to formate by a multi-functional, redox-active borane

251st National Meeting (2016)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.