Future options for storing carbon dioxide: Synthesis of inorganic heteroalkenes

Group 13/15 heteroalkenes RMER' with M-E double bonds (M = B-Tl; E = N-Bi) offer promising potential for bond activation reactions, but they are difficult to prepare. A team led by CENIDE professor Stephan Schulz now describes new synthetic methods for group 13 metallapnictenes in no less than three articles in the journal Angewandte Chemie. They allow for the preparation of preparative amounts as a basis for systematic reactivity studies.

It was shown that the gallaphosphene L(CL)Ga=P-GaL (L =β-diketiminate) not only selectively activates the C(sp3)-H bonds of acetone and acetophenone, but also CO₂. The latter reaction is even completely reversible in this process, and thus the bound CO₂ can be re-released with reversion of the gallaphosphene at 90 °C.

"I would never have thought that such a reversible reaction, that reveals new options in CO₂ storage, was possible. Together with CH activation, the supreme discipline in organometallic chemistry, this results in a wide range of options—including catalytic reactions," Schulz says.