Catalyst Development for Polymerization and CO₂ Capture, Storage and Upcycling to High Value Materials

Abstract

Current strategies to reduce C$O_2$ emissions are insufficient—both point-source and direct-air-capture (DAC) must be considered to mitigate excessive atmospheric C$O_2$ concentrations. Given the urgency of climate change issues and the immense challenges of developing viable methodologies for C$O_2$ conversion, we posit that understanding structure–property relationships of organic/inorganic molecular reactivity across multiple length scales will lead to the evolution of remarkably efficient transformations of C$O_2$ and revolutionize chemistries to control the fate of this greenhouse gas. Thus, we sought to investigate families of superbases (SBs) that serve as C$O_2$ mitigating agents. This talk will focus on describing the wide-scope reactivity of a family of modular SBs that can be exploited in a variety of chemical transformations of C$O_2$ from dilute and pure gaseous sources as well as polymerizations. We found that the SBs can form zwitterionic complexes to activate C$O_2$, which can be readily mineralized into metal carbonates. Importantly, the highly reactive nature of SBs renders them widely useful to upcycle C$O_2$ into high value products.