Selective electrochemical oxidation of ammonia provides an ideal pathway to synthesize hydrazine, but this process is outcompeted by a more favourable overoxidation to N2. A molecular ruthenium catalyst has now flipped the script, circumventing the thermodynamic challenges to selectively generate hydrazine.
References
Chen, J. G. et al. Science 360, 873–879 (2018).
Rothgery, E. F. in Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology Vol. 13, 562−607 (John Wiley & Sons, 2004).
Lindley, B. M., Appel, A. M., Krogh-Jespersen, K., Mayer, J. M. & Miller, A. J. M. ACS Energy Lett. 1, 698–704 (2016).
Schirmann, J.-P. & Bourdauducq, P. in Ullmann’s Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry 79−96 (Wiley-VCH, 2002).
Wang, F., Gerken, J. B., Bates, D. M., Kim, Y. J. & Stahl, S. S. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 142, 12349–12356 (2020).
Chen, G. et al. Nat. Catal. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-023-01025-z (2023).
Habibzadeh, F., Miller, S. L., Hamann, T. W. & Smith, M. R. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 116, 2849–2853 (2019).
Dunn, P. L., Cook, B. J., Johnson, S. I., Appel, A. M. & Bullock, R. M. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 142, 17845–17858 (2020).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding authors
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Garrido-Barros, P., Funes-Ardoiz, I. Defying thermodynamics to synthetize hydrazine. Nat Catal 6, 868–869 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-023-01033-z
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41929-023-01033-z
- Springer Nature Limited