Molecular Transition Metal Oxide Electrocatalysts for the Reversible Carbon Dioxide-Carbon Monoxide Transformation.

Carbon monoxide dehydrogenase (CODH) enzymes are active for the reversible CO oxidation-CO reduction reaction and are of interest in the context of CO abatement and carbon-neutral solar fuels. Bioinspired by the active-site composition of the CODHs, polyoxometalates triply substituted with first-row transition metals were modularly synthesized. The polyanions, in short, {SiM W } and {SiM' M''W }, M, M', M''=Cu , Ni , Fe are shown to be electrocatalysts for reversible CO oxidation-CO reduction.

Guest Transition Metals in Host Inorganic Nanocapsules: Single Sites, Discrete Electron Transfer, and Atomic Scale Structure.

Host-guest solution chemistry with a wide range of organic hosts is an important and established research area, while the use of inorganic hosts is a more nascent area of research. In the recent past in a few cases, Keplerate-type molybdenum oxide-based porous, spherical clusters, shorthand notation {Mo}, have been used as hosts for organic guests. Here, we demonstrate the synthetically controlled encapsulation of first-row transition metals (M = Mn, Fe, and Co) within a Keplerate cluster that was lined on the inner core with phosphate anions, {MoPO}.

Visible-Light Photochemical Reduction of CO to CO Coupled to Hydrocarbon Dehydrogenation.

Research on the photochemical reduction of CO , initiated already 40 years ago, has with few exceptions been performed by using amines as sacrificial reductants. Hydrocarbons are high-volume chemicals whose dehydrogenation is of interest, so the coupling of a CO photoreduction to a hydrocarbon-photodehydrogenation reaction seems a worthwhile concept to explore. A three-component construct was prepared including graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN) as a visible-light photoactive semiconductor, a polyoxometalate (POM) that functions as an electron acceptor to improve hole-electron charge separation, and an electron donor to a rhenium-based CO reduction catalyst.

A Thiourea Tether in the Second Coordination Sphere as a Binding Site for CO and a Proton Donor Promotes the Electrochemical Reduction of CO to CO Catalyzed by a Rhenium Bipyridine-Type Complex.

The electrochemical reduction of CO has been extensively investigated in recent years, with the expectation that a detailed mechanistic understanding could achieve the goal of finding a stable catalyst with high turnover frequencies and low reduction potentials. In the catalytic cycle of the carbon dioxide hydrogenase enzyme, it has been suggested that the reduced metal center reacts with CO to form a carboxylate intermediate that is stabilized by hydrogen bonding using a histidine moiety in the second coordination sphere. Using the well-known fac-Re(I)bipyridine(CO)Cl complex as a starting point, the bipyridine ligand was modified in the second coordination sphere with a thiourea tether that is known to form hydrogen bonds with carbonyl moieties.

Photochemical Reduction of CO with Visible Light Using a Polyoxometalate as Photoreductant.

The photochemical reduction of CO to CO requires two electrons and two protons that, in the past, have been derived from sacrificial amine donors that are also non-innocent in the catalytic cycle. Towards the realization of a water-splitting reaction as the source of electrons and protons for CO reduction, we have found that a reduced acidic polyoxometalate, H PW W O , is a photoactive electron and proton donor with visible light through excitation of the intervalence charge-transfer band. Upon linking the polyoxometalate to a dirhenium molecular catalyst, a cascade of transformations occurs where the polyoxometalate is electrochemically reduced at a relatively low negative potential of 1.