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Updated: Mar 13, 2026

Versatile CO2 Transformations into Complex Products: A One-pot Two-step Strategy
Published on: November 9, 2019
Solvent-Driven Reductive Activation of CO2 by Bismuth: Switching from Metalloformate Complexes to Oxalate Products
Michael C Thompson1, Jacob Ramsay1, J Mathias Weber1
1JILA and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Colorado, 440 UCB, Boulder, CO, 80309-0440, USA.
Abstract:
In this work, we investigated how the reductive activation of CO2 with an atomic bismuth model catalyst changes under aprotic solvation. IR photodissociation spectroscopy of mass-selected [Bi(CO2 )n ]- cluster ions was used to follow the structural evolution of the core ion with increasing cluster size. We interpreted the IR spectra by comparison with density-functional-theory calculations. The results show that CO2 binds to a bismuth atom in the presence of an excess electron to form a metalloformate ion, BiCOO- . Solvation with additional CO2 molecules leads to the stabilization of a bismuth(I) oxalate complex and results in a core ion switch.
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