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

The use of metal hydrides such as NaBH 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 gas from a germanium hydride, PhGeH, mediated by an iron catalyst at room temperature dehydrogenative coupling, concomitant with the formation of (GePh). Of particular importance is that PhGeH can be facilely recovered from (GePh) by contact with 1 atm of H or PhICl/LiAlH at 0 °C or 40 °C, respectively. A detailed reaction mechanism for the iron-catalyzed dehydrogenative coupling of PhGeH is proposed based on the isolation of four intermediate iron species.