Catalytic Conversion of Carbon Monoxide and Carbon Dioxide into Methanol with Photocells

Abstract

It has been shown that and can be selectively converted to methanol at ambient temperature. This is based on the redox reaction being composed of the reduction of or into methanol and the oxidation of Everitt's salt (ES,) to Prussian blue (PB, ). The reaction can only be activated by homogeneous catalysts consisting of a metal complex and a primary alcohol. ES is required to be regenerated using an external electric energy in order to obtain the continuous conversion of and . The sources of such required energy were an electrochemical photocell and a solar cell. Reduction mechanisms are discussed based on the results from IR and 13C‐NMR spectra.