Dihydrogen complexes of the transition metals

Summary

The binding and activation of dihydrogen by simple transition metal complexes is of fundamental importance in processes as diverse as the homogeneous or heterogeneous hydrogenation of unsaturated organic molecules⁽¹⁾ and understanding how metalloenzymes such as nitrogenase⁽²⁾ and the hydrogenases⁽³⁾ work at the atomic level.

Simple consideration of the oxidative-addition of dihydrogen to a coordinatively-unsaturated complex {or its reverse (reductive-elimination)} reveals that the reactions are compelled to proceed via a dihydrogen complex as shown in Equation (1).

However until recently it was considered that the dihydrogen complex had only a fleeting existence. Although there had been some reports in the literature such as that by Ashworth and Singleton⁽⁴⁾ that the formally Ru^IV trihydride, [RuH₃(PMe₂Ph₂]⁺ was better formulated as the Ru¹¹ species [RuH(H₂)(PMe₂Ph)₂]⁺, these could not be substantiated. In 1984, though, Kubas showed that the apparently innocuous complex [WH₂(CO)₃(PPr ⁱ₃ )₂] contained the side-on bonded dihydrogen molecule, established unambiguously by x-ray, and neutron crystallography and spectroscopy⁽⁵⁾. In this highlight the current status of dihydrogen complexes, their structure, identification and in particular their reactivity will be discussed.