Fixation of atmospheric carbon dioxide into valuable fine chemicals
Researchers in the Department of Chemistry, IIT Bhilai, have developed new nickel(II) catalysts for fixing atmospheric carbon dioxide into valuable fine chemicals under ambient conditions. In fact, the technology development for capturing and utilizing CO2 is an evergreen interest to restrain greenhouse gas emissions. It drew much attention among academic and industrial investigators due to the abundance, inexpensive, and low toxic nature of CO2. Although around 120 million tons of CO2 are utilized annually in chemical manufacturing, including urea production, out of 24,000 million tons of CO2 was released by anthropogenic emissions. This disparity powerfully reveals that the CO2 transformation has only been partially exploited so far, as it lacks suitable catalysts. The research group under Dr. R. Mayilmurugan has developed novel, highly efficient nickel catalysts for converting CO2 into five-membered cyclic carbonates, which are used electrolytes in Li-ion batteries and chemical raw materials for the synthesis of polymers. The report is published in Chemistry—An Asian Journal on behalf of the Asian Chemical Editorial Society (ACES), supported by the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh, German Chemical Society), Chemistry Europe. The article can be accessed through the following link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asia.202201204.