Wesley Bernskoetter

Reductive Carbon Dioxide Functionalization using Earth Abundant Metals

The production of commercial chemicals and energy vectors from carbon dioxide is an attractive potential alternative to currently used petrochemical technologies.  One intriguing example would be the production of acrylates from carbon dioxide-olefin coupling. Sporadic examples of stoichiometric ethylene-carbon dioxide couplings have been reported on metals across the transition series, but progress toward catalytic production has only recently gained traction.  Our work has developed new olefin-carbon dioxide coupling reactions using Ni and Mo complexes, examined their mechanism of action, and discovered a Lewis acid enhancement pathway likely to aid in the catalytic performance of these reactions. Development of Fe/Lewis acid co-catalyst systems for reversible hydrogenations of CO2 will also be discussed.

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