Nitrous oxide (N2O), commonly known as “laughing gas” for its physiological effects, is both a potent greenhouse gas an ozone depleting substance. Indeed, it is a major contributor to climate change, thereby posing a critical concern for contemporary society. Nitrous oxide possesses a warming potential approximatively 300 times that of carbon dioxide and due to its high chemical stability, it persists in the atmosphere for over 100 years. Nitrous oxide is naturally present in the atmosphere as part of the global nitrogen cycle, a vital nutrient cycle for sustainable and biodiverse ecosystems. Since the industrial revolution, this cycle has been disturbed by the excessive use of ammonia (NH3) based fertilizer, intensive agriculture, and fossil fuels combustion, resulting in increased nitrous oxide emissions. It was estimated that nearly half of the global population would rely on ammonia based fertilizers for their food supply at the start of the 21st century, with further increases projected for the coming decades. Consequently, as global ammonia-based fertilizer use continues to rise, global nitrous oxide emissions are projected to increase. This imbalance has already compromised the viability of many ecosystems, leading to widespread biodiversity loss. Urgent measures are required to repurpose nitrous oxide! In this proposed research (N2OTOCARBON), we investigated strategies to capture nitrous oxide by mean of chemical transformations.
The overarching goal of N2OTOCARBON was to develop new reaction methodologies that enable the chemical capture of nitrous oxide for the synthesis of industrially relevant diazo containing compounds.
The specific objectives are as follows:
Objective 1 (O1): Discover new reactivities using anionic nucleophiles with nitrous oxide to access diazotates, a covalent nitrous oxide adduct (Work Package 1 - WP1).
Objective 2 (O2): Explore the stability of diazotates and their reactivity with main group compounds (Work
Package 2 - WP2).
Objective 3 (O3): Explore the reactivity of diazotates and "masked" diazotates to access synthetically versatile organic functional groups (Work Package 3 - WP3).
