Research progress of CO₂ utilization in organic synthesis

The influence of increasing CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere on the environment and society is one of the most significant challenges all over the world at present. As an effective means of mitigating and adapting to climate change, carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) has attracted increasingly attention. CO₂ utilization, that is, the direct use of CO₂ or its conversion into more valuable products, has become an extremely important part of a broad strategy to reduce CO₂ emissions. The realization of this challenge requires the support of technological and policy changes. This review discusses the research progresses and related challenges in the process of converting CO₂ into specific chemicals (such as formic acid, methanol, polymers) at domestic and abroad in the past 20 years, and proposes the methods that may have potential to apply to industrial organic synthesis on a large scale in the near future from the perspective of high-efficiency use of atoms and industry, such as the CO₂ based synthesis of polyether alcohol carbonate and polycarbonate, meanwhile, the difficulties and challenges that need to be faced to realize the application are also pointed out in this review.