Synthetic Inorganic Chemistry Related to the Nitrogenase Cofactor: Core Heteroligated Fe-S-X Cubanes and Higher Nuclearity Clusters

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The biological conversion of atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia is essential to life on Earth. The reaction is difficult to accomplish -- the equivalent industrial chemistry requires high temperatures and pressures to perform the conversion. Microbes use the nitrogenase enzyme system to achieve this reaction under mild, ambient conditions. At the heart of the enzyme is a cluster of iron, sulfur, molybdenum, and carbon atoms termed the iron-molybdenum cofactor that carries out this chemistry. How it does so is very much a mystery.