A molecular molybdenum-oxo catalyst for generating hydrogen from water

A growing awareness of issues related to anthropogenic climate change and an increase in global energy demand have made the search for viable carbon-neutral sources of renewable energy one of the most important challenges in science today¹. The chemical community is therefore seeking efficient and inexpensive catalysts that can produce large quantities of hydrogen gas from water^1-7. Here we identify a molybdenum-oxo complex that can catalytically generate gaseous hydrogen either from water at neutral pH or from sea water. This work shows that high-valency metal-oxo species can be used to create reduction catalysts that are robust and functional in water, a concept that has broad implications for the design of green and sustainable chemistry cycles.