Carbon dioxide is underutilized as a building block for hydrocarbon commodity chemical synthesis. Although catalysts are used to effectively form C-H and C-O bonds from CO2 producing bulk chemicals like methanol and carbonates, C-C bond formation has only been demonstrated in rare cases. Many metal surfaces will adsorb CO2, however, this generally leads to non-productive intermediates incompatible with C-C bond formation, and side reactions such as hydrogenation and polymerization. In contrast, Cu reacts less strongly with CO2 and are less likely to catalyze side reactions. We will report the reactivity of Cu surfaces covered with surface bound alkyl reagents with CO2. Single crystal Cu surface reactivity is reported using results from the ultra-high vacuum techniques temperature programmed reaction spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy in order to elucidate the mechanism of C-C bond formation using CO2.

Catalytic C-C bond formation to synthesize carboxylic acids using CO2

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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