Storage of renewable energy in chemical bonds is a promising avenue to lessening the world’s dependence on fossil fuels. While many efforts focus on CO2 reduction or N2 conversion to NH3, a new path could be generation of hydrazine, N2H4, from nitrogen. N2H4 is an energy dense, liquid fuel with nearly barrier-less energy release, but currently very few catalysts can convert N2 directly to N2H4 selectively and efficiently. Prior studies have shown that lanthanides activate dinitrogen to form a bridging η2 N22- unit which can be further reduced and protonated to N2H4, though full conversion of N2 to N2H4,has not been demonstrated by one complex. While studying the protonylsis of [(C5Me4H)2Lu]2(N2)(THF), it was observed that the complex had unique photochromic behavior in natural sunlight. Since there is not an abundance of molecular photochromic species, especially those with a filled 4f electronic configuration, we characterized this spectroscopic behavior and will reveal our findings in this talk

Unusual photochromic behavior in lutetium dinitrogen complexes

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