The industrial revolution came with its perks of emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere leading to severe disruptive climate changes. The NOAA reported in 2019 that, of the greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere, CO2 contributed to about 80% of the increased greenhouse gases hence the need for CO2 Sequestering and Storage (CSS) and ultimately leading to Carbon Capture and Recycling (CCR) as a viable option to convert CO2 into useful forms. The race to find the best catalyst for CCR has led to the synthesis of many organometallic compounds. Pincer complexes catalyzed CO2 reduction has gained notoriety recently because of the tunability and robustness without causing any alteration in their overall coordination geometry 3. Different metals and pincer motifs have been reported for the electrocatalytic and photochemical reduction of CO2. Interestingly, very few NHC based pincer complexes of iron capable of CO2 reduction are known. NHC based pincer complexes of iron have garnered so much attention because the lower toxicity, abundance, lower cost of iron and the ability to tune the NHC ligand backbone. The scarcity of these NHC based pincer complexes of iron is in part due to the difficulty in deprotonation of the imidazolium salt and partly due to the tendency of these metals readily opting for an octahedral coordination around them. We will report the synthesis of several iron pincer complexes bearing only one mono anionic phenylene bridged CCC-NHC pincer ligand via the Zr(NMe2)4 metalation-trans metalation route. Characterization of theses complexes was carried out using 1H NMR, cyclic voltammetry, X-ray diffraction, and mass spectrometry. Reactivity with different L-type ligands with the mono ligated CCC-NHC Fe pincer complex have been investigated and preliminary cyclic voltammetry data suggest some of these complexes are capable of CO2 reduction reaction. The latest results and catalyses will be reported.

Towards CO2 reduction; synthesis, characterization and CO2 reduction of CCC-NHC Fe pincer complexes

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ACS Fall 2022

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