This article reviews the application of transient techniques in the elucidation of electron, proton, and photon chemistry related to the catalytic subsite of [FeFe] hydrogenase from the perspective of research in this area carried out at the UEA and Strathclyde laboratories. The detection of mixed-valence states, bridging CO intermediates, paramagnetic hydrides, and coordinatively unsaturated species has both informed understanding of biological catalysis and stimulated the search for stable analogues of key structural motifs likely involved in turnover states.

The potential of carbon monoxide to act as a therapeutic agent is now well-established. Controlled delivery of CO is best achieved using ‘CORMs’: molecules which release known amounts of carbon monoxide in response to a stimulus. Metal carbonyl complexes will release CO if irradiated with ultraviolet light, but it is only in the past five years that development of true ‘photoCORMs’ has been explored. Recent exciting developments in this area now show that design of photoCORMs operating well into the visible region is achievable. In this Perspective, we examine the growth of photoCORMs from their origins in the photophysics of metal carbonyls to the latest visible-light agents.

α-Zirconium phosphonates derivatised with N-heterocyclic carbenes provide a versatile platform for organocatalysis and metal-catalysed transformations, including the ring-opening polymerisation of cyclic esters, and olefin metathesis and hydroformylations by surface-bound ruthenium, rhodium and iridium complexes.

The potential of carbon monoxide to act as a therapeutic agent is now well-established. Controlled delivery of CO is best achieved using ‘CORMs’: molecules which release known amounts of carbon monoxide in response to a stimulus. Metal carbonyl complexes will release CO if irradiated with ultraviolet light, but it is only in the past five years that development of true ‘photoCORMs’ has been explored. Recent exciting developments in this area now show that design of photoCORMs operating well into the visible region is achievable. In this Perspective, we examine the growth of photoCORMs from their origins in the photophysics of metal carbonyls to the latest visible-light agents.

α-Zirconium phosphonates derivatised with N-heterocyclic carbenes provide a versatile platform for organocatalysis and metal-catalysed transformations, including the ring-opening polymerisation of cyclic esters, and olefin metathesis and hydroformylations by surface-bound ruthenium, rhodium and iridium complexes.