Metrics & More Article RecommendationsCONSPECTUS: To tackle the energy and environmental concerns the world faces, much attention is given to catalytic reactions converting methane (CH 4 ) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) as abundant C1 resources into value-added chemicals with high efficiency and selectivity. In the oxidative conversion of CH 4 to methanol, it is necessary to solve the requirement of strong oxidants due to the large bonddissociation energy (BDE) of the C−H bonds in methane and achieve suppression of overoxidation due to the smaller BDE of the C−H bond in methanol as the product.On the other hand, to efficiently perform CO 2 reduction, proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) processes are required since the reduction potential of CO 2 becomes positive by using proton-coupled processes; however, under the acidic conditions required for PCET, hydrogen evolution by the reduction of protons becomes competitive with CO 2 reduction. Thus, it is indispensable to develop efficient catalysts for selective CO 2 reduction. Recently, we have developed efficient catalytic reactions toward the alleviation of the concerns mentioned above. Concerning CH 4 oxidation, inspired by metalloenzymes that oxidize hydrophobic organic substrates, a hydrophobic second coordination sphere (SCS) was introduced to an Fe II complex bearing a pentadentate N-heterocyclic carbene ligand, and the Fe II complex was used as a catalyst for CH 4 oxidation in aqueous media. Consequently, CH 4 was efficiently and selectively oxidized to methanol with 83% selectivity and a turnover number of 500. In contrast, when methanol was used as a substrate for catalytic oxidation by the Fe II complex, oxidation products were obtained in a negligible yield, which was comparable to that of the control experiment without the catalyst. Therefore, the hydrophobic SCS of the Fe II complex can capture only hydrophobic substrates such as CH 4 and release hydrophilic products such as methanol to the aqueous medium for suppressing overoxidation ("catch-and-release" mechanism). On the other hand, for photocatalytic CO 2 reduction, we have developed Ni II complexes with N 2 S 2 -chelating ligands as catalysts, which have been inspired by carbon monoxide dehydrogenase, and have also introduced a binding site of Lewis-acidic metal ions to the SCS of the Ni complex. When Mg 2+ was applied as a moderate Lewis acid, a Mg 2+ -bound Ni catalyst allowed us to achieve remarkable enhancement of the photocatalytic CO 2 reduction to afford CO as the product with over 99% selectivity and a quantum yield of 11.4%. Divalent metal ions besides Mg 2+ also showed similar positive impacts on photocatalytic CO 2 reduction, whereas monovalent metal ions exhibited almost no effects and trivalent metal ions exclusively promoted hydrogen evolution. In this Account, we highlight our recent progress in the catalytic manipulations of CH 4 and CO 2 as C1 resources.
