Ruthenium-catalyzed hydrogenation of CO2 as a route to methyl esters for use as biofuels or fine chemicals

Zheng Wang; Ziwei Zhao; Yong Li; Yanxia Zhong; Qiuyue Zhang; Qingbin Liu; Gregory A. Solan; Yanping Ma; Wen-Hua Sun

doi:10.1039/D0SC02942D

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Ruthenium-catalyzed hydrogenation of CO₂ as a route to methyl esters for use as biofuels or fine chemicals†

Zheng Wang,

^abc Ziwei Zhao,^a Yong Li,^a Yanxia Zhong,^d Qiuyue Zhang,

^b Qingbin Liu,

*^a Gregory A. Solan,

*^be Yanping Ma

^b and Wen-Hua Sun

*^b

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a Hebei Key Laboratory of Organic Functional Molecules, College of Chemistry and Material Science, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang 050024, China
E-mail: liuqingb@sina.com

^b Key Laboratory of Engineering Plastics and Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Science, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
E-mail: gas8@leicester.ac.uk, whsun@iccas.ac.cn
Fax: +86-10-62618239
Tel: +86-10-62557955

^c College of Science, Agricultural University of Hebei, Baoding 071001, China

^d Department of Nursing Shijiazhuang Medical College, Shijiazhuang 050000, China

^e Department of Chemistry, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK

Abstract

A novel robust diphosphine–ruthenium(II) complex has been developed that can efficiently catalyze both the hydrogenation of CO₂ to methanol and its in situ condensation with carboxylic acids to form methyl esters; a TON of up to 3260 is achievable for the CO₂ to methanol step. Both aromatic and aliphatic carboxylic acids can be transformed to their corresponding methyl esters with high conversion and selectivity (17 aliphatic and 18 aromatic examples). On the basis of a series of experiments, a mechanism has been proposed to account for the various steps involved in the catalytic pathway. More importantly, this approach provides a promising route for using CO₂ as a C1 source for the production of biofuels, fine chemicals and methanol.

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Article information

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/D0SC02942D
Article type: Edge Article
Submitted: 26 May 2020
Accepted: 05 Jun 2020
First published: 05 Jun 2020
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry

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Chem. Sci., 2020,11, 6766-6774

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Ruthenium-catalyzed hydrogenation of CO₂ as a route to methyl esters for use as biofuels or fine chemicals

Z. Wang, Z. Zhao, Y. Li, Y. Zhong, Q. Zhang, Q. Liu, G. A. Solan, Y. Ma and W. Sun, Chem. Sci., 2020, 11, 6766 DOI: 10.1039/D0SC02942D

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