CO2 activation and conversion mediated by transition metal (TM) catalysts were investigated. Homogeneous catalysis of the reverse water gas shift reaction CO2+H2→H2O+CO was studied as a means to reduce CO2. β-diketiminato metal models L'MI ( L' =C3N2H5-; M = first-row TMs) were considered as potential catalysts. The thermodynamics of prototypical reaction pathways were simulated using B3LYP/aug-cc-pVTZ. Results show that middle series metal complexes result in more thermodynamically favorable properties; therefore, more detailed thermodynamic and kinetic studies were carried out for Mn, Fe, and Co complexes. On the other hand, heterogeneous catalysis of the reduction of CO2 to CO was carried out on Fe, Co, Ni, and Cu surfaces, using the PBE functional. Reaction barriers were calculated using the climbing image nudged elastic band method. Late 3d and 4d transition metal ion (Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Ru, Rh, Pd, and Ag) mediated activation of dimethyl ether was studied to investigate the intrinsic catalytic properties of metals for C-O bond cleavage. A set of density functional theory (DFT) methods (BLYP, B3LYP, M06, M06-L, B97-1, B97-D, TPSS, and PBE) with aug-cc-pVTZ basis sets was calibrated with CCSD(T)/CBS calculations on reaction energies and barriers.
