Conversion of Carbon Dioxide from Air to Methanol, Formaldehyde, Formic Acid and Ammonium Pentaborate Tetrahydrate

摘要

A process for sequestering CO_(2) from air by sparging air through an NH_(4)OH solution and adding NaBH_(4) produces formic acid, formaldehyde, methanol and ammonium pentaborate tetrahydrate in appreciable yields. This sparging chemistry centers around the well-known phenomenon of carbonate in strong bases. The newly discovered chemistry is based on H~(-) as a nucleophile that can attack a nucleofuge, the carbonyl in carbonate in strong base. NaHCO_(3) was used as a positive control for the sparging method giving nearly identical IR spectra for sparged NH_(4)OH and, NaHCO_(3) added NH_(4)OH. This novel chemistry can be shown to produce H~(-) substitution products of sulfate and phosphate esters of carbohydrates. The H~(-) nucleophile adds one, two and three H atoms to carbonate, for formic acid, formaldehyde and methanol, respectively, two H atoms to sulfate esters and one H atom to phosphate. In this way phosphate versus sulfate substitution can be discerned by mass spectrometry using this chemistry. The pH profile of the reaction mixture for the NaHCO_(3) dissolved in 1 N NH_(4)OH first dropped below starting pH possibly because the reaction vessel was capped, allowing NH_(3)(g) to evolve and possibly drive the reaction forward. But then the pH returned to a slight lower pH than the starting pH 11.4. This novel chemistry may allow a sustainable reduction in the green-house gas, CO_(2), worldwide, to relieve pressure on food uses for corn and thereby avert food shortages throughout the world.