We have made new ruthenium and iridium complexes in which hydrogen bonding ligands allow for hydrogenation in water and efficient water oxidation.  These complexes feature new ligands that place hydrogen bonds near the metal center on a bipyridine scaffold.  These ligands allow for hydrogenation reactions to take place with mostly water as the solvent (Nieto, I.; Papish, E. T. et al. Organometallics 2011 , 30, 6339).  Hydrogenation could potentially lead to a means of storing hydrogen fuel.  Furthermore, iridium complexes of our hydrogen bonding ligands are catalysts for water oxidation.  Sunlight driven water oxidation has been discussed in the literature as a potential way of storing solar energy as a clean burning fuel.  Significantly, our catalysts are more active than other iridium catalysts in the literature at water oxidation driven by sacrificial oxidants, and the hydrogen bonding groups can be deprotonated to switch the fast catalysis off or on by pH.

Hydrogenation and water oxidation with new hydrogen bonding ligands: Adding OH groups to a bipyridine scaffold for water solubility and pH switchable reactivity

244th National Meeting (2012)

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