Ma, Ruosi2012-05-162012-05-162012-04-18https://hdl.handle.net/11299/123540Mentors: Connie Lu, Stephen TereniakWorldwide depletion of fossil fuels along with their ever increasing costs mandate a shift toward alternative energy sources. Methanol appears to be a viable liquid fuel, but its current method of generation is too energetically costly to be scalable to a practical degree. This research investigated the synthesis of cage-ligand catalysts, which may potentially allow for carbon dioxide to be efficiently converted to methanol. A secondary project investigated the catalytic ability of various ligand catalysts. Considerable progress was made in the cage assembly process, but purification of chemical intermediates significantly hindered its development in later steps. The product yields obtained from the ligand catalysts were unfortunately much lower than those of similar reactions found in the literature.en-USChemical EngineeringDepartment of ChemistryCollege of Science and EngineeringPresentation