Reducing the GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions from human activities can slow, and ultimately reverse, the negative impacts of the rapidly rising GHG levels in Earth’s atmosphere. Today’s petrochemical industry relies on 10% of its fossil carbon and uses 7% of its energy for chemical manufacture. In addition to GHG generation, the polymers produced from these feedstocks are prevalent in consumer products and packaging, whose waste stream is deleterious to the environment. To both reduce reliance on fossil carbon, and manufacture degradable consumer products, starch and cellulose are being used as renewable carbon sources. However, this puts the food industry and chemical manufacturing industries in competition for feedstock.<br/>We propose an alternative method of carbon feedstock production by the upcycling of C1 GHGs, namely methane and carbon dioxide, in a hybrid chemical-biochemical pathway where the C3 and C4 chemicals—acetylene carboxylic acid (ACA) and acetylene dicarboxylic acid (ADCA)—feed biochemical synthesis of commodity chemicals. Stochiometric organic amidine and guanidine bases have been reported to mediate carboxylation of acetylene to ADCA and ACA, but this reaction has received scant attention. Several questions remain regarding the reaction mechanism, especially the role of organic bases in (i) the carboxylation reaction and (ii) the chemoselectivity of the reactions. In this poster, a series of experiments are designed to test potential acetylene carboxylation pathways using a model substrate, phenylacetylene.

Mechanistic insights related to base mediated carboxylation of terminal alkynes

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

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