High-Nuclearity Silver Clusters Templated by Carbonates Generated from Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Fixation

Two high-nuclearity silver clusters have been prepared by reacting AgC2But with AgBF4 (or AgOTf) in the presence of TMEDA in air. The reaction takes up atmospheric CO2 to give CO32-, which functions as a template for the formation of the cage compounds, whose nuclearities depend on the particular counteranions employed