Organometallic Chemistry of Carbon Dioxide. Final Report for June 1, 1986 - March 31, 2002

Research focused on C{sub 1} transition metal complexes that are relevant to CO{sub 2} activation and fixation. First, we prepared and studied new metallocarboxylic acids, a class of compounds proposed as intermediates in the Water Gas Shift reaction and CO{sub 2} reductions, and the corresponding metallocarboxylate anions. Next, we prepared and structurally characterized a large number of CO{sub 2}-bridged bimetallic compounds (models for metal surface-bound CO{sub 2}) and established structure-spectra correlations for the three general types of compounds identified. The next phase involved the synthesis and studies of putative catalytic intermediates derived from rhenium and ruthenium polypyridyl complexes in order to establish their fundamental reaction characteristics. Finally, we progressed to the design of a possible catalytic sequence which could account for C{sub 2} products formed in ruthenium-catalyzed CO{sub 2} reductions and to the synthesis, characterization and studies of the reactions of expected intermediates in the catalytic sequence