Germanium hydrides as an efficient hydrogen-storage material operated by an iron catalyst

The use of metal hydrides such as NaBH(4) as hydrogen-storage materials has recently received substantial research attention on account of the worldwide demand for the development of efficient hydrogen-production, -storage, and -transportation systems. Here, we report the quantitative production of H(2) gas from a germanium hydride, Ph(2)GeH(2), mediated by an iron catalyst at room temperature via dehydrogenative coupling, concomitant with the formation of (GePh(2))(5). Of particular importance is that Ph(2)GeH(2) can be facilely recovered from (GePh(2))(5) by contact with 1 atm of H(2) or PhICl(2)/LiAlH(4) at 0 °C or 40 °C, respectively. A detailed reaction mechanism for the iron-catalyzed dehydrogenative coupling of Ph(2)GeH(2) is proposed based on the isolation of four intermediate iron species.