Donor-Acceptor Activation of Carbon Dioxide

The activation and functionalization of carbon dioxide entails great interest related to its abundance, low toxicity and associated environmental problems. However, the inertness of CO2 has posed a challenge towards its efficient conversion to added-value products. In this review we discuss one of the strategies that have been widely used to capture and activate carbon dioxide, namely the use of donor-acceptor interactions by partnering a Lewis acidic and a Lewis basic fragment. This type of CO2 activation resembles that found in metalloenzymes, whose outstanding performance in catalytically transforming carbon dioxide encourages further bioinspired research. We have divided this review into three general sections based on the nature of the active sites: metal-free examples (mainly formed by frustrated Lewis pairs), main group-transition metal combinations, and transition metal heterobimetallic complexes. Overall, we discuss one hundred compounds that cooperatively activate carbon dioxide by donor-acceptor interactions, revealing a wide range of structural motifs. The cooperative activation of carbon dioxide by donor-acceptor interactions have become a highly popular strategy whose chemical designs span across the whole periodic table. This perspective categorizes the wide variety of systems reported and assesses their limitations and prospects to develop catalytic functionalization protocols.+image

Automated summary

In this review, we discuss the strategy of donor-acceptor interactions for capturing and activating carbon dioxide. We categorize the systems into metal-free examples, main group-transition metal combinations, and transition metal heterobimetallic complexes, and summarize one hundred compounds with cooperative CO2 activation by donor-acceptor interactions. This perspective provides an overview of the wide variety of structural motifs and assesses the limitations and prospects for developing catalytic protocols for CO2 functionalization.