Hydrogen activation on organometallic complexes and H2 production, utilization, and storage for future energy

This perspective article serves to highlight the contributions to this special volume of Journal of Organometallic Chemistry entitled “Organometallics for Energy Conversion”. The key features of dihydrogen coordination to transition metal complexes are discussed in the context of the challenge of producing and utilizing hydrogen as the energy carrier of the future. Ultimately, production of H2 fuel from water will be needed rather than its current production principally from natural gas. Schemes involving use of solar energy to split water are currently of high interest, and a massive research effort is underway worldwide to accomplish this goal. This is primarily a chemistry problem (rather than engineering or materials), and it can then be assumed that organometallic chemistry will play an important role for both hydrogen production and storage.