Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Chatelain, Lucile
• Louyriac, Elisa
• Douair, Iskander
• Lu, Erli
• Tuna, Floriana
• Wooles, Ashley J
• Gardner, Benedict M
• Maron, Laurent
• Liddle, Stephen T

Titel

Terminal uranium(V)-nitride hydrogenations involving direct addition or Frustrated Lewis Pair mechanisms

Ist Teil von

• Nature communications, 2020-01, Vol.11 (1), p.337-337, Article 337

Ort / Verlag

England: Nature Publishing Group

Erscheinungsjahr

2020

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Free E-Journal (出版社公開部分のみ）

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Despite their importance as mechanistic models for heterogeneous Haber Bosch ammonia synthesis from dinitrogen and dihydrogen, homogeneous molecular terminal metal-nitrides are notoriously unreactive towards dihydrogen, and only a few electron-rich, low-coordinate variants demonstrate any hydrogenolysis chemistry. Here, we report hydrogenolysis of a terminal uranium(V)-nitride under mild conditions even though it is electron-poor and not low-coordinate. Two divergent hydrogenolysis mechanisms are found; direct 1,2-dihydrogen addition across the uranium(V)-nitride then H-atom 1,1-migratory insertion to give a uranium(III)-amide, or with trimesitylborane a Frustrated Lewis Pair (FLP) route that produces a uranium(IV)-amide with sacrificial trimesitylborane radical anion. An isostructural uranium(VI)-nitride is inert to hydrogenolysis, suggesting the 5f electron of the uranium(V)-nitride is not purely non-bonding. Further FLP reactivity between the uranium(IV)-amide, dihydrogen, and triphenylborane is suggested by the formation of ammonia-triphenylborane. A reactivity cycle for ammonia synthesis is demonstrated, and this work establishes a unique marriage of actinide and FLP chemistries.