A supramolecular ruthenium macrocycle with high catalytic activity for water oxidation that mechanistically mimics photosystem II

Nature Chemistry. doi:10.1038/nchem.2503
Authors: Marcus Schulze, Valentin Kunz, Peter D. Frischmann & Frank Würthner

 http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nchem.2503.html
http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/vaop/ncurrent/pdf/nchem.2503.pdf

Designing improved catalysts is predicated on understanding how they work. Now, by positioning three ruthenium centres in a macrocyclic framework, a remarkable acceleration of catalytic water oxidation has been achieved. Detailed mechanistic studies revealed that the catalyst operates through the ‘water nucleophilic attack’ pathway—similar to the natural oxygen-evolving cluster of photosystem II.