Dinitrogen reduction to ammonia with a pincer-Mo complex: new insights into the mechanism of nitride-to-ammonia conversion

2025/01/01 by Souvik Mandal, Xiaoguang Zhou, Quinton J. Bruch +8 · 1 voice · 6 citations
Chemical Engineering · Chemistry · Energy · #Ammonia #Ammonia Synthesis and Nitrogen Reduction #Asymmetric Hydrogenation and Catalysis #Catalysis #Chemistry #Combinatorial chemistry #Mechanism (biology) #Metalloenzymes and iron-sulfur proteins #Molybdenum #Nitride #Organic chemistry #Philosophy #Pincer movement #Thioether

paper · pdf · doi:10.1039/d5sc00454c

published in Chemical Science 16(17), 7347-7365 (Royal Society of Chemistry)

openalex publication_date 2025/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

imide is followed by a second protonation, then a rapid and favorable one-electron reduction, followed by a third protonation to afford coordinated ammonia. This comprehensive analysis of the elementary steps of ammonia synthesis provides guidance for future catalyst design.

Citations

• How a century of ammonia synthesis changed the world
• Self-consistent molecular orbital methods. XXIII. A polarization-type basis set for second-row elements

Discussions

• Check out our new paper in Chem. Sci. Bimetallic cleavage of N2 gives very stable nitrides, with little driving force to add an H atom or H+/e- to get to ammonia. But the catalysts find a way around t [bsky, 18 points, 1 comments]

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