Katherine Jones Anne
Research project
Development of Bio-Inspired Carbon Dioxide Reduction Catalysts
Project summary
Human use of fossil fuels has led to production of greenhouse gases and associated climate change. Of chief concern among these pollutants is carbon dioxide, and development of scalable and efficient methods to recapture this carbon dioxide and incorporate it into fuel molecules would reinvent the alternative energy landscape. The challenge is that carbon dioxide does not react readily with other chemicals. Many living organisms catalyze incorporation of carbon dioxide into organic molecules using earth-abundant transition metal centers. This project will use ideas gleaned from the study of biological catalysis to develop new inorganic, molecular catalysts for reduction of carbon dioxide. In particular, tethering of acid/base residues to the periphery of the catalytic metal will be evaluated as a means to enhance the activity of a modest catalyst.
