Mechanism of iron-based hydrogen bond cleavage revealed

Hydrogen-based fuel cells hold promise for sustainable power generation, but to become practical they need to be more efficient and cost effective. Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's (PNNL's) Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis (CME) are working to understand the fundamental reactivity of H2 that could contribute to making hydrogen a more widely used fuel source. Working with a rare iron-based paramagnetic complex, a CME-based research team for the first time reported the mechanism of reactivity of hydrogen and explained in detail how hydrogen atoms are transferred. Their study, "H2 Binding, Splitting, and Net Hydrogen Atom Transfer at a Paramagnetic Iron Complex," appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.