Superalkalis for the Activation of Carbon Dioxide: A Review
Harshita Srivastava, Ambrish Kumar Srivastava
Abstract
The activation of carbon dioxide is essential not only for global carbon balance but also for its conversion into fuel. As CO 2 is highly stable, it is quite challenging to activate or reduce CO 2 . Recently, the ability of superalkalis to easily transfer an electron to CO 2 has been proposed in several studies. The superalkalis are species possessing lower ionization energy than alkali atoms. These are hypervalent species, having an excess of electrons. Owing to this, they possess strong reducing power and cause the linear structure of CO 2 to bend by transferring an electron to it. Herein, we present a comprehensive account of the single-electron reduction and activation of CO 2 by various kinds of superalkalis. This review also includes a novel strategy for the capture and storage of CO 2 by superalkali.