Manganese Electrocatalysts with Bulky Bipyridine Ligands: Utilizing Lewis Acids To Promote Carbon Dioxide Reduction at Low Overpotentials
By Matthew D. Sampson and Clifford P. Kubiak
Published in Journal of the American Chemical Society
2016
Abstract
Earth-abundant manganese bipyridine (bpy) complexes are well-established molecular electrocatalysts for proton-coupled carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction to carbon monoxide (CO). Recently, a bulky bipyridine ligand, 6,6?-dimesityl-2,2?-bipyridine (mesbpy), was utilized to significantly lower the potential necessary to access the doubly reduced states of these manganese catalysts by eliminating their ability to dimerize after one-electron reduction. Although this Mn mesbpy catalyst binds CO2 at very low potentials, reduction of a resulting Mn(I)