Journal of the American Chemical Society
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Y.; Yuki, M.; Nakajima, K.; Yoshizawa, K.; Nishibayashi, Y. Angew.
Other researchers, George and co-workers,
and
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Tuczek and co-workers, previously used triphosphines
and tetraphsophines as ligands to prepare highly reactive
molybdenum-dinitrogen complexes. However, the cata-
lytic reaction has never been achieved by using so far
reported molybdenum-dinitrogen complexes bearing
triphosphines and tetraphsophines. In contrast, the pre-
sent molybdenum-nitride complexes bearing PPP ligand
as only an auxiliary ligand have now been found to work
as the most effective catalysts for nitrogen fixation. We
believe that the mer-coordination mode with PPP ligand
to the Mo atom in 4 and 5 provides a suitable environ-
ment to the molybdenum complexes toward the catalytic
22
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reaction.
Further work should be necessary to eluci-
date more detailed reaction pathway.
In summary, we have found that newly designed and
prepared molybdenum-nitride complexes bearing PPP
ligand worked as the most effective catalysts toward the
catalytic reduction of dinitrogen into ammonia under
ambient reaction conditions, where up to 63 equiv of
ammonia were produced based on the Mo atom. This
catalytic activity is more than five times higher than that
(6) (a) Arashiba, K.; Miyake, Y.; Nishibayashi, Y. Nat. Chem.
2011, 3, 120. (b) Kinoshita, E.; Arashiba, K.; Kuriyama, S.; Miyaka,
Y.; Shimazaki, R.; Nakanishi, H.; Nishibayashi, Y. Organometallics
6
of the original reaction system by using 1 as a catalyst.
2
012, 31, 8437.
The result described in this article provides the first suc-
cessful example of catalytic transformation by using
molybdenum complexes bearing only a triphosphine as
an auxiliary ligand. We believe that the present findings
provide useful information to design more effective
catalysts.
(
7) (a) Tanaka, H.; Arashiba, K.; Kuriyama, S.; Sasada, A.;
Nakajima, K.; Yoshizawa, K.; Nishibayashi, Y. Nat. Commun. 2014,
5, 3737. (b) Kinoshita, E.; Arashiba, K.; Kuriyama, S.; Eizawa, A.;
Nakajima, K.; Nishibayashi, Y. Eur. J. Inorg. Chem. 2015, 1789.
(
8) Kuriyama, S.; Arashiba, K.; Nakajima, K.; Tanaka, H.; Kama-
ru, N.; Yoshizawa, K.; Nishibayashi, Y. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2014, 136,
9719.
(
(10) (a) Rittle, J.; Peters, J. C. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 2013,
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Chem. Soc. 2014, 136, 13853.
(11) Ung, G.; Peters, J. C. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2015, 54, 532.
(
Chem. 2012, 51, 3239.
(13) The absorption at 1883 cm-1 was observed when 15N2 gas was
used under the same reaction conditions. This experimental value
corresponded to the theoretical value (1887cm ). In all cases, no
peaks were observed by NMR, due to their paramagnetic property.
9) Anderson, J. S.; Rittle, J.; Peters, J. C. Nature 2013, 501, 84.
ASSOCIATED CONTENT
1
Supporting Information
Experimental procedures, spectroscopic data, and X-ray
data (CIF). This material is available free of charge via the
Internet at http://pubs.acs.org.
12) Gilbert-Wilson, R.; Field, L. D.; Bhadbhade, M. M. Inorg.
-
1
AUTHOR INFORMATION
t
14) When PPh groups were used in place of P Bu group in the
2 2
(
Corresponding Author
PPP ligand, we can not prepare the corresponding nitride complexes
under the same reaction conditions.
(
(
(
15) See the Supporting Information in details.
16) Weatherburn, M. W. Anal. Chem. 1967, 39, 971.
17) Separately, we confirmed the direct conversion of molecular
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