Unraveling the Mechanism of Fe-based Photocatalytic Complexes for Solar Hydrogen Production

Sustainable electro- and photocatalytic H2-production based on environmentally benign and earth-abundant resources is an important goal of current chemical research. In this context, the development of biomimetic and bio-inspired hydrogenase models with polynuclear iron-carbonyl-clusters represents a promising strategy to replace the function of less abundant catalyst materials such as platinum and other precious metals. Here, we propose to use time-resolved IR spectroscopy on all time scales relevant for the reactions (from <100fs up to seconds) to unravel the mechanisms of photo-induced electron transfer and potential hydrogen production in novel Fe-carbonyl complexes.