Activation and Fixation of Atmospheric CO through a 1,2,3-Triazole-Based Mesoionic Carbene-Borane Adduct.

Capturing atmospheric CO and converting it to valuable chemicals are important goals in contemporary science. We present here a simple, transition metal-free triazolylidene-borane adduct that can capture atmospheric CO and convert it to formate. Several key intermediates were isolated and characterized by a combination of multinuclear NMR spectroscopy, IR spectroscopy and single crystal X-ray diffraction. A first closed cycle for the conversion of CO to formic acid by using the aforementioned triazolylidene-borane compound is presented as well.