Electrochemical and Photochemical Transformations of Dinitrogen
The functionalization of dinitrogen to ammonia and particularly to organic nitrogen compounds, such as amines, nitriles or nitro compounds, at ambient conditions remains as one of the most challenging tasks in homogeneous catalysis. In turn, selective oxidations of ammonia or organic amines are of great importance, e.g. in the context of electrocatalytic ammonia combustion or nitrene transfer catalysis.
Our group examines elementary reactions relevant to N2-fixation strategies, such as nitride hydrogenolysis and coupling, or N2splitting into molecular nitrides and N-transfer from the resulting nitrides to organic molecules (Figure). In this context, mechanistic aspects of key reactions and electronic structure/reactivity relationships for pivotal intermediates will be discussed.
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