Catalytic behavior of a polynuclear Mg-Mo complex and nitrogenase active site (FeMoco) isolated from the enzyme in reactions with C2H2, N2, and CO: A comparative study

In order to identify common and distinctive features in the catalytic behavior of natural and artificial nitrogen-fixation clusters, the kinetics of the catalytic reduction of C₂H₂ in the presence of Mg-Mo-cluster (1) was investigated and compared with the kinetics of acetylene reduction catalyzed by the cluster FeMoco (2) isolated from the enzyme nitrogenase we studied previously. The reactions were conducted in the presence of Zn/Hg and Eu/Hg as reducing agents and PhSH and C₆F₅SH as proton donors, i.e., under the same conditions as had been used in the case of 2. Both polynuclear Mg-Mo-complex and the europium amalgam-reduced FeMoco have multiple interdependent binding sites for substrates and/or inhibitors. Carbon monoxide inhibits the acetylene reduction much less efficiently in systems with cluster 1 than in systems with cluster 2, although the type of inhibition is mixed in both systems: CO binds to multiple sites of the cluster and affects both C₂H₂ complexation to the reduced cluster and decomposition of the catalyst-substrate complex to give the products. Unlike isolated FeMoco, the Mg-Mo-cluster efficiently catalyzes the reduction of molecular nitrogen. The reaction is greatly inhibited by acetylene, while no inhibiting effect of N₂ is observed in acetylene reduction, as was found earlier for a system with the natural cluster as the catalyst. Published in Russian in Izvestiya Akademii Nauk. Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 5, pp. 766–774, May, 2006.