CO₂ capture, reduction, and utilization by silicon and aluminum compounds and their mechanistic ways

A running thread in contemporary chemical research is that of sustainability. Using highly abundant material as feedstocks for useful products is highly desirable in the modern world and will be a necessity looking towards the future. One major chemical in abundance is that of carbon dioxide, a waste material from energy production and a main contributor to climate change. A shared goal in academia and industry is transforming carbon dioxide into valuable carbon containing compounds. One such avenue is doing this chemically with abundant and reactive compounds, with prime candidates being silicon and aluminium. There has been a meteoric rise in main group chemistry of late, especially with silicon and aluminium containing compounds, exhibiting reactivity at once thought not possible. One such reaction is the direct activation of carbon dioxide, without the aid of any metal catalyst or additive. In this last half century, a wealth of remarkable silicon/aluminium compounds have been isolated in unprecedented oxidation states and bonding modes. This has translated into unique interactions with carbon dioxide resulting in fundamentally interesting compounds and isolable intermediates in industrially relevant processes, with new prospects into CO₂ functionalisation.