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Carbon dioxide hydrogenation with base to generate formate salts can provide a means of storing hydrogen in an energy dense solid. However, this application requires catalytic CO2 hydrogenation, which would ideally use an earth abundant metal catalyst. In this article, six new (CNC)CoIL2 pincer complexes were synthesized and fully characterized, including single crystal X-Ray diffraction analysis on four new complexes. These complexes contain an imidazole-based (1R) N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ring or a benzimidazole based NHC ring (2R) in the CNC pincer. The R group is para to N on the pyridine ring and been varied from electron withdrawing (CF3) to donating (Me, OMe) substituents. The L type ligands have included CO and phosphine ligands (in PPh32 and PMe32). Thus, two known Co complexes (1, 1OMe) and six new complexes (1Me, 1CF3, 2, 2OMe, PPh32, PMe32) were studied for the CO2 hydrogenation reaction. In general, the unsubstituted CNC pincer complexes bearing two carbonyl ligands led to the highest activity. The best catalyst, 2, remains active for over 16 h and produces a turnover number of 39,800 with 20 bars of 1:1 CO2 / H2 mixture at 60 °C. A computational study of the mechanism of CO2 hydrogenation is also reported. 

Abstract A new method to synthesize complexes of the type [(CNC)Ru^II(NN)L]ⁿ⁺has been introduced, where CNC is a tridentate pincer composed of two (benz)imidazole derived NHC rings and a pyridyl ring, NN is a bidentate aromatic diimine ligand, L=bromide or acetonitrile, and n=1 or 2. Following this new method a series of six new complexes has been synthesized and characterized by spectroscopic, analytic, crystallographic, and computational methods. Their electrochemical properties have been studiedviacyclic voltammetry under both N₂and CO₂atmospheres. Photocatalytic reduction of CO₂to CO was performed using these complexes both in the presence (sensitized) and absence (self‐sensitized) of an external photosensitizer. This study evaluates the effect of different CNC, NN, and L ligands in sensitized and self‐sensitized photocatalysis. Catalysts bearing the benzimidazole derived CNC pincer show much better activity for both sensitized and self‐sensitized photocatalysis as compared to catalysts bearing the imidazole derived CNC pincer. Furthermore, self‐sensitized photocatalysis requires a diimine ligand for CO₂reduction with catalyst2_ACNbeing the most active catalyst in this series with TON=85 and TOF=22 h⁻¹with an electron donating 4,4′‐dimethyl‐2,2′‐bipyridyl (dmb) ligand and a benzimidazole derived CNC pincer.