As greenhouse gas emissions increase, the capture of carbon dioxide has become a point of interest. This captured CO2 can be utilized as a cheap, abundant carbon source that can then be converted back to fuels, such as methanol [1]. Current methods to produce MeOH emit greenhouse gases, so CO2 conversion to MeOH would be beneficial as it would both reduce CO2 emissions and utilize the CO2 that is already in the atmosphere.
While this conversion has been proven possible, it has been accomplished with heterogeneous catalysts that require elevated temperature and pressure to produce methanol. Homogenous catalysts can react under milder conditions, but are often made from non-abundant metals, such as ruthenium [2,3]. Exploring the possibility of using more earth-abundant metals, such as cobalt, to form the catalyst has been done, but these have been with ill-defined catalysts [1]. To optimize these cobalt catalysts and investigate the catalytic cycle, we are synthesizing a variety of well-defined homogeneous complexes and proposed cobalt(I) and cobalt(II) hydride intermediates based on a cobalt-triphos system. The performance of these catalysts is then analyzed by GCMS and compared to each other to determine the most effective catalysts. [1] Schneidewind, J.; Adam, R.; Baumann, W.; Jackstell, R.; Beller, M. Low-Temperature Hydrogenation of Carbon Dioxide to Methanol with a Homogeneous Cobalt Catalyst. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed Engl. 2017, 56 (7), 1890-1893.
[2] Kothandaraman, J.; Goeppert, A.; Czaun M.; Olah G. A.;Prakash G. K. S. Conversion of Co2 from Air into Methanol Using a Polyamine and a Homogenous Ruthenium Catalyst. JACS. 2016, 138 (3), 778-781.
[3] Wesselbaum, S.; Vom Stein, T.; Klankermayer, J.; Leitner, W. Hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to methanol by using a homogeneous ruthenium-phosphine catalyst. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2012, 51 (30), 7499-7502.