Simple Photochemical Reduction of Carbon Dioxide to Formate Ovuokenye Omadoko, Department of Chemistry, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, Tennessee. There is a need to develop techniques for conversion of carbon dioxide to other useful products such as methanol, formaldehyde, formic acid, formate, methane, and hydrocarbons. Carbon dioxide can be converted into these products using different methods such as photochemical, electrochemical, thermochemical and hydrogenation by bacteria. Formate is of interest due to having wide industrial applications which include use in direct liquid fuel cells (DLFC’s), an additive in pyrolysis vapors, precursor for biological fuels, and is a key intermediate in methanogenesis breaking down complex organic compounds. In this work, conversion of carbon dioxide to formate was accomplished photochemically. The concentration of formate obtained was quantified using ion chromatography. The yield of formate, based on the amount of carbon dioxide in solution, was 1.54%, while the quantum yield near 1.0%. Detailed studies of the photoreduction process showed that amount of sensitizer, light intensity and pH affect the amount of formate generated.