Archive for the ‘chemistry’ Category
From Waste to Use
Grignard is apparently not the only reaction to convert carbon dioxide to carboxyllic acids any more.
The team [Zhaomin Hou, of RIKEN's Advanced Science Institute]was also able to study exactly how the catalyst works, by isolating key molecules at various intermediate stages of the reaction. They found that the active copper catalyst first displaces the boron group from the starting molecule, forming a new copper–carbon bond. Carbon dioxide then inserts itself into this bond before the copper catalyst is finally removed, leaving behind a carboxylic acid (-CO2H) group.
Read more here.
