Periodic Reporting for period 2 - CARBOFLOW (Streamlined carbon dioxide conversion in ionic liquids – a platform strategy for modern carbonylation chemistry)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-07-01 al 2023-12-31
However, few industrial processes utilize carbon dioxide as a raw material, and potent catalysts are required to overcome its thermodynamic and kinetic barrier.
The ERC-funded project CARBOFLOW focuses on the photocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide in ionic liquids and its successive conversion into high value carbonyl compounds. Several goals need to be realized, including fundamental studies and optimization of the ionic liquid co-catalysed photocatalytic reduction of carbon dioxide to produce CO as building block under mild conditions. The reactivity of formed CO in carbon dioxide with various organic substrates needs to be explored before finally developing a streamlined and continuous process for the direct formation of carbonyl compounds from carbon dioxide.
Overall, we expect that the photocatalytic activation of carbon dioxide may overcome problems currently associated with carbon dioxide utilization, eventually replacing the long-standing bastion of CO-based carbonylation chemistry with novel solutions.
In parallel, a second postdoctoral fellow was working on the development of carbonylation processes in pre-formed CO/carbon dioxide mixtures. So far, different reactions were successfully performed in batchwise mode and in continuous flow at ambient pressure, including alkoxycarbonylations, amidations, carbonylative cross couplings and formation of redox active esters.
Additionally, a novel cooperation with the electrochemistry department enabled electrochemical carbon dioxide reduction in continous flow as alternative to photochemical reduction. Ultimately, novel photochemical reactions were developed that gave new input and widened product range for the utilization of captures carbon dioxide (CCU).
We expect that these results and findings can be fit together until the end of the project, thus providing a mild, reliable and continous way to utilize carbon dioxide for the production of fuels , bulk and fine chemicals.