Formaldehyde is an important precursor to numerous industrial processes and is produced in multimillion ton scale every year by catalytic oxidation of methanol in an energetically unfavorable and atom-inefficient industrial process. In this work, we present a highly selective one-step synthesis of a formaldehyde derivative starting from carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas utilizing a homogeneous ruthenium catalyst. Here, formaldehyde is obtained as dimethoxymethane, its dimethyl acetal, by selective reduction of carbon dioxide at moderate temperatures (90 °C) and partial pressures (90 bar H2/20 bar CO2) in the presence of methanol. Besides the desired product, only methyl formate is formed, which can be transformed to dimethoxymethane in a consecutive catalytic step. By comprehensive screening of the catalytic system, maximum turnover numbers of 786 for dimethoxymethane and 1290 for methyl formate were achieved with remarkable selectivities of over 90% for dimethoxymethane.

A dynamic axially chiral BIPHEP-ligand with 3,5-dichlorobenzoyl amide selector units for non-covalent binding of phenylalanine derivatives has been developed. Interaction studies in solution were performed with rhodium(i) complexes under exclusion of the metal being involved in binding. (Rax, S(Phe)) and (Sax, S(Phe)) adducts were observed as significantly separated species in NMR spectroscopy.

Due to the increasing demand for formaldehyde as a building block in the chemical industry as well as its emerging potential as feedstock for biofuels in the form of dimethoxymethane and the oxymethylene ethers produced therefrom, the catalytic transformation of carbon dioxide to the formaldehyde oxidation state has become a focus of interest. In this work, we present novel ruthenium complexes with hetero-triphos ligands, which show high activity in the selective transformation of carbon dioxide to dimethoxymethane. We substituted the apical carbon atom in the backbone of the triphos ligand platform with silicon or phosphorus and optimized the reaction conditions to achieve turnover numbers as high as 685 for dimethoxymethane. The catalytic systems could also be tuned to preferably yield methyl formate with turnover numbers of up to 1370, which in turn can be converted into dimethoxymethane under moderate conditions.