Novel approaches for activating hydrogen are needed to increase efficiency and decrease costs in energy-intensive industrial processes. Amine boranes have the potential to provide unique solutions to two seemingly different applications: (i) catalytic hydrogenation, critical to many industrial processes, ranging from upgrading crude oil to ammonia synthesis, and (ii) hydrogen storage, a potentially critical solution to storing energy from intermittent renewable sources such as wind and solar.In this presentation the relationship between hydrogen storage and catalysis is discussed. The work starts with the pedagogical example of ammonia borane and ammonium borohydride in hydrogen storage and extends to more complex amine borane structures that provide the ability to tune thermodynamics. We describe a combination of experimental and computational approaches to gain insight into structure and reactivity of non-metal molecular complexes composed of Lewis acid Lewis base functionality to understand the mechanism of heterolytic activation of molecular hydrogen.

Hydrogen activation in molecular complexes: Approaches to catalysis and energy storage using amine boranes

247th National Meeting (2014)

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