Fig. 3: Mechanistic investigations of MF dehydrogenation.

a, Arrhenius plot. b, KIE data. For the curve slopes, see Supplementary Table 9. c, Molecular details of the DFT calculations. E, PPh2. Red colour route: MF direct dehydrogenation. Blue colour route: MF hydrolysis followed by dehydrogenation. d, Solid-state structure of the key intermediate [H–Ru–OCOOCH3] without carbon-bound hydrogen atoms. The displacement ellipsoids correspond to 30% probability. e, Dehydrogenation comparison using the intermediate crystal [H–Ru–OCOOCH3] and its corresponding catalyst precursor C1.