Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 30, 2025

Surface Functionalization of Metal-Organic Frameworks for Improved Moisture Resistance
Published on: September 5, 2018
Bioinspired Active Site with a Coordination-Adaptive Organosulfonate Ligand for Catalytic Water Oxidation at Neutral
Tianqi Liu1, Shaoqi Zhan2,3, Nannan Shen4
1Department of Chemistry, School of Engineering Sciences in Chemistry Biotechnology and Health, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, 10044 Stockholm, Sweden.
Abstract:
Many enzymes use adaptive frameworks to preorganize substrates, accommodate various structural and electronic demands of intermediates, and accelerate related catalysis. Inspired by biological systems, a Ru-based molecular water oxidation catalyst containing a configurationally labile ligand [2,2':6',2″-terpyridine]-6,6″-disulfonate was designed to mimic enzymatic framework, in which the sulfonate coordination is highly flexible and functions as both an electron donor to stabilize high-valent Ru and a proton acceptor to accelerate water dissociation, thus boosting the catalytic water oxidation performance thermodynamically and kinetically. The combination of single-crystal X-ray analysis, various temperature NMR, electrochemical techniques, and DFT calculations was utilized to investigate the fundamental role of the self-adaptive ligand, demonstrating that the on-demand configurational changes give rise to fast catalytic kinetics with a turnover frequency (TOF) over 2000 s-1, which is compared to oxygen-evolving complex (OEC) in natural photosynthesis.
More Related Videos
05:47Preparation of Polyoxometalate-based Photo-responsive Membranes for the Photo-activation of Manganese Oxide Catalysts
Published on: August 7, 2018
10:52Multiscale Sampling of a Heterogeneous Water/Metal Catalyst Interface using Density Functional Theory and Force-Field Molecular Dynamics
Published on: April 12, 2019
Related Concept Videos
Introduction to Mechanisms of Enzyme Catalysis
Water: A Bronsted-Lowry Acid and Base
Metal-Ligand Bonds
In these complexes, transition metals form coordinate covalent bonds, a kind of Lewis acid-base interaction in which both of the electrons in the bond are contributed by a donor (Lewis base) to an electron acceptor (Lewis acid). The Lewis acid in...
Ligand Binding Sites
Protein-ligand interactions are quite specific; even though numerous potential ligands surround a cellular protein at any given time, only a particular ligand can bind to that protein. Moreover, a ligand binds only to a dedicated area on the surface of the protein, known as the...
Ligand Binding and Linkage
Oxidation of Alkenes: Syn Dihydroxylation with Osmium Tetraoxide