Abstract
Two unique metal-dinitrogen complexes are offering new perspectives on the important phenomena of dinitrogen bonding to metal centers. Chemists at the University of Missouri, Columbia, have created an unusual dinitrogen-bridged gold cluster, while researchers at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, have made a dinitrogen-zirconium complex with singular reactivity toward hydrogen. Metal-dinitrogen complexes are the key to nitrogen fixation, the catalytic reduction of molecular nitrogen (N 2 ) to ammonia. Nature easily fixes N 2 with enzymes called nitrogenases that are found in certain bacteria. Humans have a harder time accomplishing the same feat: The industrial Haber-Bosch process requires high pressure and temperature to convert N 2 and hydrogen to ammonia over an iron catalyst. Neither the mechanism of the enzymatic reaction nor the mechanism of the industrial process is clearly understood. Now, Missouri chemistry professor Paul R. Sharp and graduate students Hui Shan, Yi Yang, and Alan J. J...
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