Manganese Complexes: Hydrogen Generation and Oxidation

Innovative breakthroughs by designing cheap, sustainable and efficient systems for the conversion and storage of renewable energy sources can help to solve the energy demand. An economically viable way could be the production of hydrogen. Designing noble metal-free catalysts can play an important role in the path towards sustainable hydrogen economy. Nobel metal catalysts are limited by their cost and scalability. In nature, the hydrogenases and photosystem II use iron, nickel and manganese ions for catalysis. Drawing inspiration from nature, several attempts have been made by chemists to design cheap and robust catalysts. Though there are many reviews on the Fe and Ni complexes, there are very few that have discussed Mn. Therefore, in this review a comprehensive description is given on Mn-based complexes reported as catalysts for the hydrogen evolution and oxidation reactions.