The dehydrogenation reaction of alcohols to generate hydrogen at ambient conditions has been studied, it is shown for the first time that ruthenium in the presence of easily available amine ligands constitutes an active catalysts for this reaction: high turnover frequencies (TOF) up to 519 h(-1) (after 2 h) and catalyst stability (>250 h) were achieved for the dehydrogenation of isopropanol with a combination of [RuCl2(p-cymene)]2/TMEDA.