Professor Matt Kanan, Stanford University. "Turning CO2 into a Resource." Harvard/MIT Inorganic Chemistry Seminar. At MIT.
Abstract: This talk will describe our recent efforts toward converting CO2 into commodity chemicals. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop scalable processes in which the use of CO2 affords a clear chemical advantage over conventional fossil fuel–based routes.
I will first describe our investigation of a new design principle for heterogeneous electrochemical CO2 reduction catalysts. We have pioneered the use of grain boundaries to create metastable active surfaces for CO2 and recently elucidated a structural model to explain grain boundary effects.
In the second part of my talk, I will describe new carboxylation reactions to generate (di)-carboxylic acids that have high-volume applications. Carboxylation is potentially a compelling alternative to the oxidation methods currently used to synthesize carboxylic acids, but conventional carboxylation methodology relies on extremely energy-intensive reagents. We have found systems in which simple carbonate salts deprotonate un-activated C–H bonds, generating carbon-centered nucleophiles that react with CO2 to form C–C bonds.
As an initial application, we used this chemistry to convert furoic acid, a compound derived from inedible biomass, into furan-2,5-dicarboxylic acid (FDCA), a monomer used for polyester plastic synthesis. I will describe work on process chemistry to scale up this synthesis. I will also describe recent work to extend this methodology to simple hydrocarbon substrates and create closed cycles in which carbonate is used catalytically.
LOCATION:MIT, 4-370 STATUS:CONFIRMED DTSTART:20171213T211500Z DTEND:20171213T221500Z END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR