Biomimetic models of [Fe]-hydrogenase featuring a 2-acylphenylthiomethyl-6-R-pyridine (R = H or OMe) ligand

Abstract

Despite a variety of [Fe]-H₂ase models prepared so far, the structural and functional modeling study of the enzyme has remained a great challenge. Now, we report a new type of flexible pyridine ligand (FPL)-based synthetic method by which two novel [Fe]-H₂ase models have been prepared. Notably, the two models contain not only a biomimetic fac-acyl C, pyridyl N, thioether S coordination mode but also possess the enzyme-like H₂/D₂ activation functions.