Structural and mechanistic studies on Magnganese systems targeting catalytic water oxidation

Manganese underlies the chemical mechanism in a variety of oxo-enzymes/synthetic catalysts. Most important is the catalytic site in Photosystem II, which is the most efficient system known for oxidising water. The detailed structure of this site and the mechanism of water oxidation are yet unresolved, but yielding to study. This project will reveal the chemical detail of the photosystem water oxidase, in the light of new experimental and theoretical studies on this and related, simpler Manganese catalytic systems. We will use these insights to design and construct artificial, bio-mimetic Mn systems in new strategies for artificial photosynthetic hydrogen gas production from water, with oxygen gas as the clean by-product.