LE3 .A278 2020

2020

Ellis, Bobby

Acadia University

Bachelor of Science

Honours

Chemistry

Chemistry

Increasing levels of greenhouse gases, in particular atmospheric CO2, has become a widely studied topic in the scientific community. Due to increasing observable changes in the climate, innovative solutions have been proposed to deal with the carbon dioxide. Currently, most captured carbon dioxide is sequestered post-combustion and stored underground. Capture methods include physical absorption, membrane separation, and chemical absorption. Since chemical absorption with amines is known to be effective, as seen from industrial level amine scrubbing, CO2 capture with an amino phosphonate would give possibility for functionalization. With help of a metal catalyst carbon dioxide can be reduced using H2 to give alternative fuels such as methane and methanol. Alkyl and aryl phosphonates were synthesized in order to prepare amino phosphonates. Diphenyl, dimethyl, and diethyl phosphonates were prepared from phosphorus trichloride and the appropriate alcohol. Dimethyl phosphonate was synthesized in the highest purity with a yield of 66%. Since it was easier to purify this compound over its diphenyl and diethyl counterpart, dimethyl phosphonate was used in the synthesis of bis(2-aminoethyl) phosphonate. Bis(2-aminoethyl) phosphonate was synthesized from the alkyl phosphonate and 2-aminoethanol. While the data suggests this was achieved, it was in very low yields compared to the starting reagents. Due to time constraints, it was not determined if the prepared amine could be used to capture CO2. Characterization of the compounds was done using 1H and 13C{1H} NMR spectroscopy.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:3457