A Robust Pentacoordinated Iron(II) Proton Reduction Catalyst Stabilized by a Tripodal Phosphine

Inorg Chem. 2017 Sep 18;56(18):10926-10931. doi: 10.1021/acs.inorgchem.7b01079. Epub 2017 Aug 28.

Abstract

A pentacoordinated triphosphine benzenedithiolatoiron(II) complex containing a vacant site for binding has been prepared and characterized. The complex is found to be a robust proton reduction catalyst with an overpotential of 0.56 V and a turnover frequency of 2900 s-1 with respect to 0.28 M acetic acid as the proton source. A mechanism describing the electroproton reduction process has been proposed.