Homogeneous catalytic system for reversible dehydrogenation-hydrogenation reactions of nitrogen heterocycles with reversible interconversion of catalytic species.

The first homogeneous catalytic system for the efficient reversible dehydrogenation-hydrogenation reactions of nitrogen heterocycles in one flask has been developed using the pyridonate Cp*Ir complex as the single catalyst at relatively low temperature. The reversible catalytic reactions proceed with the reversible interconversion of catalytic species and can be nearly quantitatively repeated five times with almost no loss of efficiency. The remarkable feature of the present homogeneous catalytic system is that the reversible dehydrogenation-hydrogenation reactions proceed with the reversible interconversion of the catalytic species, depending on the absence or presence of hydrogen.