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

Abstract

A process for sequestering CO2 from air by sparging air through an NH4OH solution and adding NaBH4 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. NaHCO3 was used as a positive control for the sparging method giving nearly identical IR spectra for sparged NH4OH and, NaHCO3 added NH4OH. 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 NaHCO3 dissolved in 1 N NH4OH first dropped below starting pH possibly because the reaction vessel was capped, allowing NH3(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, CO2, worldwide, to relieve pressure on food uses for corn and thereby avert food shortages throughout the world.