Probing the Nature of Surface Hydrides by Deuterium Quadrupolar Parameters: A Case Study on Silica-Supported Zirconium Hydrides

Supported metal hydrides are key reactive intermediates in various catalytic processes, such as hydrogenation and dehydrogenation, but are often challenging to characterize spectroscopically. Here, deuterium solid state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy is used to understand the structure of the corresponding silica-supported zirconium hydrides after H/D exchange as an illustrative example of supported metal hydrides, which have been shown to display notable reactivity towards small molecules (e. g., CO₂ and N₂O) and to activate both C−H and C−C bonds, hence their use in to the conversion of hydrocarbons (alkanes, polyolefins etc.)