Issue 24/2017 - New progress has been made in the hydrogenation of carbon dioxide to synthesize formic acid

Recently, the project of carbon dioxide (CO2) hydrogenation to synthesize formic acid has made new progress
in the project of hydrosynthetic formic acid by carbon dioxide (CO2) in cooperation with Huang Yanqiang, associate researcher Yang Xiaofeng of the Dalian Institute of Chemistry and Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and associate professor Wang Xinkui of Dalian University of Technology.

CO2 hydrogenation to synthesize formic acid is an atomic economic reaction, and the formic acid generated is not only an important chemical raw material, but also an ideal liquid hydrogen storage material
.
The carbon atoms in CO2 molecules are in the highest valence state and chemically inert, and their effective activation is the key to
achieving efficient CO2 conversion.
The team designed a Schiff base-modified gold nanocatalyst, which uses the nitrogen center in the Schiff base group to weakly interact with CO2 to generate urethane zwitterion, and further hydrogenation reaction occurs on the nanogold catalyst to generate formic acid
.
The experimental results show that unlike the traditional bicarbonate hydrogenation path of heterogeneous catalysts, gas-phase CO2 can be directly hydrogenated into formic acid
on Schiff-base modified gold catalysts.
The weak interaction mode between Schiff base and CO2 provides a new way for
low-temperature activation of CO2.