New Metal Hydride Cluster

New Metal Hydride Cluster

Author: ChemistryViews

Heteromultimetallic hydride clusters containing both rare-earth and d-transition metals are of interest in terms of both their structure and reactivity, but  have not yet been investigated to a great extent because of difficulties in their synthesis and structural characterization.

Zhaomin Hou and colleagues, RIKEN, Japan, report the synthesis, X-ray and neutron diffraction studies, and hydrogen addition and release properties of a family of rare-earth/d-transition-metal heteromultimetallic polyhydride complexes of the core structure type ‘Ln4MHn’ (Ln = Y, Dy, Ho; M = Mo, W; n = 9, 11, 13). They are the first to explore complexes with multiple rare earth atoms and with well-defined structures.

They monitored hydrogen addition to a hydride cluster in a single-crystal to single-crystal process by X-ray diffraction. Density functional theory studies reveal that the hydrogen addition process is cooperatively assisted by the Y/Mo heteromultimetallic sites. This offers unprecedented insight into the hydrogen addition and release process of a metal hydride cluster and points the way to new hydrogen storage techniques.


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