Activation of carbon monoxide

Haem, Fe Chlorophyll, Mg Coenzyme B12, Co Factor F-430, Ni Electron transfer in membranes and elsewhere Light capture and transduction in membranes Transfer of methyl, rearrangements of substrates Activation of carbon monoxide... 

The catalytic activation of carbon monoxide is a research area currently receiving major attention from academic, industrial, and government laboratories. There has been a long standing interest in this area however, the new attention obviously is stimulated by concerns with the present and future costs and availability of petroleum as a feedstock for the production of hydrocarbon fuels and of organic chemicals. One logical alternative source to be considered is synthesis gas, mixtures of carbon monoxide and hydrogen that can be produced from coal and other carbonaceous materials. 

Activation of Carbon Monoxide by Carbon and Oxygen Coordination... 

Experimental and Theoretical Studies of Mechanisms in the Homogeneous Catalytic Activation of Carbon Monoxide... 

At the outset it is important to clarify the scope of this discussion by the elimination of areas which will not be considered. When one notes that the term "activation of carbon monoxide" may mean a process as little perturbative of the C-0 bond as its end-on attachment to a metal atom in carbonyls, or as strongly perturbative as its dissociation to atoms on a metal surface, the need for limits becomes obvious. In this discussion we will consider only the activation of carbon monoxide in the sense that isolable products are formed by the addition of hydrogen to the molecule without complete rupture of all carbon-oxygen bonds, oxygenates are formed. 

Within this context carbon monoxide is not the inert molecule so frequently depicted on the basis of its formal triple bond and the remarkable similarity of its physical properties to those of the isoelectronic molecule dinitrogen. (Indeed, if it were, atmospheric carbon monoxide would present no hazard ) It is, in fact, a fairly readily activated molecule the industrial process for the production of methyl formate (1) is well known, but it is less widely appreciated that this process is an example of a homogeneous, selective, base-catalyzed, activation of carbon monoxide which has for its net chemistry... 

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