Formal Oxidation States and Coordination Environments in the Catalytic Reduction of CO to Methanol

Fundamental insight into multielectron, multiproton redox reactions with organometallic catalysts is greatly facilitated by knowledge of the formal oxidation state of the metal center in each of the elementary reaction steps that comprise the catalytic cycle. X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) is utilized herein to quantify the oxidation states and coordination environment of the organometallic resting state and intermediates in a newly proposed catalytic reduction of carbon monoxide to methanol.