hemical bonding, in particular the nature of a chemical bond, the electronic structure and its reactivity, is of fundamental interest 1. Reactivity expresses the significance of reaction pathways (it is a projection of reaction rates) and the electronic structure allows us to understand why some of the reaction pathways a bond can take are relevant while others are not. Chemical bonding is the basis of chemistry, the science of synthesis. It is more than 90years ago that Lewis introduced the idea of electron pairing and sharing between neighbouring atoms2, in the first model of covalent bonding (see ref. 3 for a summary of Lewiss work). Remarkably, this simple model is still the basis of teaching in school and academia, and lies behind the bonding dash we draw between two atoms to describe the structure of a compound. A little more than ten years later, Heitler and London provided the first theoretical evidence supporting Lewiss model by showing that the energy of the HH bond is due to the resonance between the electrons as they exchange positions between the two atoms4,5. The question arises as to how many of such covalent bonds can be formed between two atoms (of the same kind). A maximum of three has been found between main-group elements, for instance in acetylene and dinitrogen, and a greater number, up to six, could be expected for bonds involving transition metals, owing to the participation of not just s and porbitals but s and dorbitals. Stable molecules with fourfold bonding have been known for a little more than 40 years and have been investigated experimentally and theoretically in detail since then6. In 2005, Power and co-workers provided the first experimental evidence of quintuple bonding in a stable molecule7. Here we summarize experimental and theoretical work related to quintuple bonding initiated by this work.
Because bond order is a chemical concept, and not an observable in the quantum mechanical sense, there does not exist a unique definition of bond multiplicity in quantum chemistry. Thus, it is characteristic of the situation that in the recent papers on CrCr quintuple bonding, different methods of studying the bonding and, in particular, evaluating the bond order have been used. There follows a general, brief overview of the different concepts used in the analysis of the bond order of the molecules highlighted in this Review.
1
There is a common idea that the covalent bond is the result of electron sharing between two atoms8, as already proposed by Lewis2 in 1916. However, concerning the role of spin pairing itself, the direct interaction of the spins, in the sense of an interaction between magnetic dipoles, is entirely negligible9. Thus, the Lewis two-electron covalent bond is essentially the cumulative result of the effects of each electron being shared individually between two atoms (tempered, of course, by the effect of the interelectronic repulsion)8. From this it becomes clear that the primary goal of a definition of bond order is to give a measure of the number of electrons shared between two atoms. For this purpose, a definition of an atom within a polyatomic unit must be made, and unfortunately this is not possible in a unique and unambiguous quantum mechanical way (see, for example, ref.10). The common concepts used in defining an atom within a polyatomic unit can be divided into Hilbert-space and position-space concepts. In Hilbert space, an atom is defined using its basis set and the engagement of it in the wavefunction. In position space, an atom is defined as an entity on the basis of some space-partitioning scheme. Two principally different schemes are used: non-overlapping, space-filling atomic units, the most prominent ones being the basins of electron density in Baders quantum theory of atoms in molecules (QTAIM)11; and fuzzy atoms with overlapping regions, the most prominent ones being the Hirshfeld atoms12. Both have been shown to possess a general physical meaning 10. Quantum chemical calculations are typically done in Hilbert space. Historically, there are two types of wavefunction representation, the molecular-orbital and valence-bond types, each of which influences how chemical bonding is considered in a specific way. Although at present the representations of the wavefunction can be at least approximately transformed into one another, they give rise to different types of bonding analysis in Hilbert space that are moreor-less specific to the wavefunction method13. The advantage of these procedures is that chemical bonding analysis can be done in terms of the immediate basic quantities used to generate the wavefunction, that is, basis sets, molecular orbitals and valence-bond structures. Notably, the position-space representation of chemical bonding, which is based on the one- and two-particle density matrices, is essentially independent of the type of wavefunction used. These matrices contain the essential information about the physical particles under
Max-Plank-Institut fr Chemische Physik fester Stoffe, 01187 Dresden, Germany, 2Anorganische Chemie II, Universitt Bayreuth, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany. *e-mail: frank.wagner@cpfs.mpg.de; kempe@uni-bayreuth.de
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consideration, that is, the electrons: the one-particle density matrix (the diagonal part of which is the electron density) describes the distribution of electrons and the two-particle density matrix describes the distribution of electron pairs. Ideally, the different methods of position-space analysis of chemical bonding each focus on specific aspects of the electronic behaviour without introducing new artificial objects (unicorns14). In this respect, they are not competing with each other, but synergistically construct a view on the chemical bond complementary to the various Hilbert-space views. Methods for theoretical bond-order analysis. In the very early days of molecular-orbital theory, even before it had been named, the first definition of the number of bonds between two atoms in a symmetric diatomic molecule was given by Herzberg 15: in its original form, it is equal to half the difference between the number of bonding electrons and the number of loosening electrons in the molecule. For conceptual reasons, this counting scheme was adopted shortly after also by Mulliken16, but he considered more fundamental a continuous conception of chemical bonding in which a nonintegral bonding power of either sign is attributable to every outer electron. The Mulliken population analysis (see below) developed 20years later contained such a quantity. Although Herzberg wrote in terms of electrons in his original paper 15, it was becoming more and more recognized that the objects obtained from certain electronic-structure methods were one-electron wavefunctions, which Mulliken chose to term orbitals17. From then on, in the framework of the developing molecular-orbital theory, bonding, non-bonding and antibonding orbitals were increasingly used to describe the bonding scenario in molecules. The Herzberg scheme of determining the bond order from molecular-orbital occupations is now taught in general chemistry textbooks and the resulting bond order is sometimes called the Herzberg number. The Herzberg number, defined on the basis of a monodeterminantal wavefunction, is now accepted as the molecular-orbital definition of the formal bond order. Also, for explicitly correlated wavefunctions, the antibonding molecular orbitals that were empty in the initial HartreeFock wavefunction become partially occupied. In the resulting natural orbitals, this happens at the expense of the occupation of the initially fully occupied bonding orbitals. Applying the Herzberg definition also in these situations generally leads to fractional bond orders. This possible generalization of the Herzberg definition was described and applied to a metalmetal multiple-bonding situation in 198718. Recently 19, the idea was revived and proposed as the definition of the effective bond order (EBO), which has been applied to characterize the bonding in diatomic molecules and in bimetallic complexes with formal metalmetal multiple bonding (see above). The Herzberg scheme is restricted to either diatomic molecules or to polyatomic molecules with strongly localized orbitals between a pair of atoms. The first definition of bond order in the framework of molecular-orbital theory applicable to delocalized orbitals was given by Coulson in terms of the Hckel model20. The application of the new definition to conjugated hydrocarbons resulted in fractional CC bond orders, for example 1.67 for benzene and 1.5 for graphite. Although not mentioned in ref.20, this yields total valences of 4.33 and 4.5 for the respective carbon atoms, which were certainly considered less chemical than the bond orders given by Pauling21 several years before. In the competing valence bond method of Heitler, London, Slater and Pauling, the electronic structure was considered to be a superposition of wavefunctions of Lewis-type structures with perfectly paired electrons. For quantitative purposes, the inclusion of ionic structures even for classical covalent bonds was soon discovered to be necessary to obtain reliable results. On the conceptual side, fractional bond orders were considered to arise as a result of resonating bonds. Three years before Coulsons20 molecular-orbital definition of the bond order, the resonance between the two (benzene) and three (graphite)
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twice the energy (45eV)40. However, in the 1970s the * transition was uniquely identified as the 14,700cm1 (1.82eV) band and the low oscillator strength was explained to be due to poor -orbital overlap44. A similar energy for the * transition was theoretically obtained in a 2003 computational study 45 that employed an explicitly correlated treatment of the electronic structure in the ground and excited states using the complete-active-space method with additional second-order perturbative treatment of dynamical correlation (CASPT2), an advanced technique in transition-metal computational chemistry. The spectral features were obtained with good accuracy. ReRe bonding has been characterized by means of the effective bond order described above. An EBO of 3.2 has been obtained from the sum of the partial bond orders 0.92(), 1.74() and 0.54(). The strongly reduced -bond contribution (0.54) is consistent with the small * energy difference mentioned above, and does not invalidate the formal picture of the quadruple bonding. Owing to the established weakness of the bond, another reason for the eclipsed arrangement of the chlorine atoms, on which Cotton and co-workers put so much emphasis, has been sought. As the result of density functional theory (DFT) calculations in combination with coupled cluster calculations, hyperconjugation has been proposed46 to be the true reason for the observed rotomeric preference. The shortest metalmetal bond in coordination compounds for decades. Bond lengths of main-group elements become significantly shorter as bond order increases1. This trend should also occur in bonds involving transition-metal homobimetallic complexes. The shortest metalmetal bond in a stable molecule has been of interest to natural scientists, in particular chemists, for decades. The element chromium has an important role in the search for such a bond. Owing to their electron configurations, chromium and the higher homologues of group-6 metals can form metalmetal bonds of high formal bond orders. Within group6, chromium has the smallest ion radius and is ideally suited to form exceptionally short metalmetal bonds. For nearly 30 years, an aryl Cr(ii) compound, structurally characterized in ref.47 and first prepared by Hein and Tille more than 40years ago48, was thought to have the shortest experimentally
a
CrCr, 1.830(4) CrCr, 1.828(2)
Historical background
The first quadruple bond. About 120years after the first report 37 on a compound which is now known to contain a formal metalmetal quadruple bond, namely Cr(ii)2(O2CCH3)4(OH2)2, the existence of metalmetal quadruple bonding is supported by strong experimental and theoretical evidence. In 1964, on the basis of a careful chemical characterization of several synthesized dirhenium octahalide compounds38, the experimental crystal structure39 of K2[Re2Cl8]2H2O and simplified molecular-orbital calculations40, Cotton and co-workers presented the first strong evidence for the notion of metalmetal 242 quadruple bonding in [Re2Cl8]2 molecular units41. The -bond interpretation was strongly suggested by the observed eclipsed arrangement of the chlorine ligands and the simultaneous unusually short ReRe distance (2.24 ). This type of compound had in fact been obtained several years before42, and the experimental crystal structure with the correct Re2Cl8 units had been published43. However, owing to the erroneous assignment of the Re(ii) oxidation state during the characterization studies41, the bimetallic units had been formulated as [Re2Cl8]4, and additional H+ ions had been supposed to be present in the crystal structure. Mainly, though, the authors, like many of their colleagues, were not yet mentally prepared for the notion of metal metal multiple bonding. It was therefore Cotton and co-workers, working on similar compounds and being aware of these previous publications, who put the pieces together in the right way and created the prototype picture of a metalmetal quadruple bond. The whole story has been told in several places (see, for example, ref.6). To characterize the strength of the bond, the optical absorption spectrum of the alkylammonium compound (NR4)2[Re2Cl8] was analysed to find the energy of the * absorption band. Owing to its observed low oscillator strength, the 14,000cm1 (1.7eV) band was ruled out and the transition was attributed with more than
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O
Figure 1 | Quadruple bonding in chromium homobimetallic complexes. a, Molecular structures of the two coordination compounds that for decades held the record for the shortest metalmetal distance in stable molecules. b, Reversible cleavage of an unsupported CrCr multiple bond by pyridine (red,Cr; orange,C; blue,O; green,N; purple,Li; brown,Br).
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Figure 2 | Molecular structure of the first stable compound in which quintuple bonding was observed. The aryl chromium dimer 1 has a CrCr distance of 1.8351(4) (colour code as in Fig.1). The metalmetal bond is supported by a metal arene interaction (thin line).
obtained metalmetal distance in a stable molecule, namely 1.830(4) (Fig.1a, left). Hein and Tille also proposed the dimeric structures for this compound, which were verified by structure determination. Interestingly, a little more than a month before the submission of ref. 47, tetrakis(2-methoxy-5-methylphenyl)dichromium (Fig. 1a, right), a homobimetallic Cr(ii) compound with a CrCr distance of essentially the same length, 1.828(2), was submitted for publication49. It appeared in print one issue after ref.47. Both publications are recognized by the community equally. Owing to the better availability of X-ray crystal structure analysis in inorganic laboratories, a great interest in synthesizing homobimetallic complexes with short metalmetal contacts evolved6. A critical review 50 of the role of the bridging ligands in alkoxo, amido and aryl Cr(ii) homobimetallics with regard to the formation of short CrCr quadruple bonds concluded that divalent chromium show a surprisingly passive behaviour compared with the dominance of the ligand. The Cr2 unit in such complexes seems to respond to the ligand by overlapping orbitals and coupling electrons. It seems almost chemically nonsensical for extremely short metalmetal distances to suggest the existence of stronger bonds or a higher degree of metal metal bond multiplicity. Very important in this regard are Cr(ii) atoms multiply bonded without a bridging ligand, that is, chromium homobimetallics with unsupported metalmetal bonds. Examples are rare. A metalmetal distance of 2.096(1) was observed for a tetramethyldibenzotetraaza[14]annulene derivative (Fig. 1b, left)51. This compound undergoes reversible metalmetal bond cleavage upon the addition of pyridine, forming a bispyridine adduct (Fig.1b). It was concluded that the energy of such CrCr multiple bonds are in the same range as the sum of the energies of the generated pyridine chromium bonds52. Dissolution of the pyridine adduct in tetrahydrofuran leads back to the dimer. These findings are indicative of the weakness of multiple bonding between Cr(ii) atoms. Very recently, it was shown53 that homobimetallic chromium complexes can have metalmetal distances of less than 1.80 . This indicates that formally quadruply bonded complexes can have much shorter metal metal distances than was thought to be the case for many years. The key to this compound is an organometallic synthesis in which AlMe3 acts as an N-ligand acceptor and a methyl donator.
Despite the fact that transition metals can formally form bonds with six shared electrons, only quadruply bonded coordination compounds had been isolated until 2005. Transition metal dimers,
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for trans-bent HCrCrH (ref. 62). In an independent bonding analysis of the same compound using the QTAIM methodology at the HartreeFock level of theory, a CrCr bond order of 3.6 was obtained67 on the basis of the delocalization index. The difference between the NRT and QTAIM results has been attributed to the physically different definitions used by the two methods of analysis. On the basis of a multiconfigurational CASPT2 wavefunction, a bonding analysis of this compound yielded a CrCr EBO of 3.4 (ref.68), which is identical to the one obtained for 1 (ref.60) at the same level of theory. Interestingly, the authors of ref.68 encountered some difficulties with the EBO formalism owing to the delocalization of one chromium d orbital, and the reported EBO was obtained only after an additional localization procedure. Thus, three different types of bond-order analysis have been reported for this compound, two at the monodeterminantal level of theory but fully including delocalization effects, and one at the multiconfigurational level but with a weakness with respect to the full separation of metalmetal interactions from metalligand interactions. It seems that, with both delocalization and correlation effects being significant, the method of analysis has an important role as well. This makes the analysis of chemical bonding of these types of compounds a real challenge. Clearly, NRT and QTAIM analysis at the multiconfigurational level of theory for this and similar compounds would be very interesting. As a continuation of ref. 7, Power and co-workers synthesized derivatives of 1 with varying substitution patterns, finding metal metal distances of between 1.8077(7) and 1.8351(4) . Packing forces rather than electronic effects were thought to control the different distances69. Inspired by 2 and the potential of three-atom bridging ligands to establish short metalmetal distances6, introduced as the Hein Cotton concept 70, two groups independently synthesized compounds stabilized by such ligands, and respectively observed metalmetal distances of 1.75 and 1.74, for instance, 3 and 4 (Fig.3b,c)70,71,72. The NN distances within the ligands listed in Fig.3 demonstrate the importance of the ligand in terms of establishing short metal metal bonds. These NN distances clearly correlate with the CrCr bond lengths. The examples shown in Fig.3b,c represent the class of ultrashort metalmetal-bonded homobimetallics. Calculations indicate quintuple bonding. The CrCr bond lengths of these compounds are intermediate between the quadruply bonded Cr(ii) Cr(ii) complexes and the gas-phase Cr2 molecule with its formal sextuple bond. Interestingly, in one of the compounds71 chromium is three-coordinated with respect to the ligand, which is difficult to understand in the context of formal quintuple bonding, as the number of metal dorbitals involved in metalligand bonding is considered to be minimized60. A comparison of the CrN bond lengths
c
NN, 2.24 CrCr, 1.74
A way of comparing the shortness of bonds across the periodic table, and thus establishing what a short bond is, is the formal shortness ratio (FSR)6. The FSR is a dimensionless number given by the ratio of the atomatom distance, d, of a bond and the sum of the radii1 of the two atoms involved, rA+rB: FSR=d/(rA+rB). The advantage of this formalism is its interelement applicability. The FSR is a useful tool for comparing formal quintuple bonding and short metal metal distances within the group-6 metals, for instance. Because here we mainly discuss the distances in chromium homobimetallic complexes, we write in terms of the distances and not the FSRs. Quintuple bonds could naively be expected to be shorter than quadruple bonds, considering general trends that have been observed for increasing bond orders in main-group chemistry 1. However, the first formal quintuple bond observed in a stable molecule was longer than the shortest CrCr distances observed in formally quadruply bonded Cr(ii) homobimetallic complexes at that time. The CrCr bond length of laser-evaporated Cr2 in the gas phase is about 1.68 (ref.56). Spectroscopic studies of Cr2 generated from pulsed photolysis of Cr(CO)6 are indicative of a distance of 1.71 (ref.57), and the calculated minimum of the ground-state potential is comparable in distance65. The Cr2 molecule can be regarded as formally sextuply bonded. Interestingly, the potential curve is rather flat around the minimum65 and should, if it is similarly flat in multiply bonded Cr(i) dimers, allow drastic shortening by rational ligand design. A quintuply bonded complex should reach a CrCr distance between those observed for 1 and Cr2, namely between 1.84 and 1.68. Consequently, efforts have been made to find formally quintuply bonded complexes that have metalmetal bond lengths within this range. The first report in this regard66 considered an N-ligandstabilized homobimetallic chromium complex (CrCr bond length, 1.8028(9)). The compound, 2 (Fig.3a), was synthesized by addition of an excess of sodium and a Cr(iii) chloride to a sterically demanding diazadiene, affording a chromium monochloride that was further reduced using potassium graphite. The problem with the diazadiene used, and other imine ligands, is its redox ambiguity, which makes it difficult to judge the oxidation state of the chromium atoms66. The DFT electronic-structure calculations reported in ref.66 showed that one of the five occupied CrCr bonding orbitals, a d orbital, is highly delocalized over the ligand. NRT analysis was used to investigate the consequences of the delocalization on the metalmetal bond order. The NRT-based bond order of 4.3 indicates a rather significant effect, to be compared with the NRT-based bond order of 4.6 obtained
a
NN, 2.84 CrCr, 1.80
Figure 3 | Homobimetallic chromium compounds in which unusually short metalmetal distances were observed. ac, Molecular structures of 2, 3 and 4, respectively. Complexes 3 and 4 represent the class of compounds that contain ultrashort metalmetal bonds. Quintuple bonding and metalmetal distances nearly as short as for the transient Cr2 molecule, which could be considered formally sextuply bonded, have been observed in them. Colour code as in Fig.1.
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a b
N Cr N
N Cr N
N Cr N
N Cr N
N Cr N N
N Cr N
Figure 4 | The role of the ligand in stabilizing ultrashort metalmetal bonds. a, In aminopyridinates, the wing-upwing-down arrangement may cause interligand repulsion limiting the compression of the two metals by the ligands. b, In amidinates, a two-wings-up arrangement allows the wings to be put further down, aligning the N-centred lone pairs to provide shorter metalmetal bonds. c, In guanidinates, the steric pressure on top of the ligand initiates a process that pushes the wings down, resulting in a further shortening of the CrCr distance.
in a series of structurally analogous chromium amidinates, in which the distances are roughly equal, is indicative that the CrN bond lengths are independent of the steric demand of the ligand72. For the aminopyridinate70, chemical bonding analysis at the DFT level has been done using position-space quantities, the electron localizability indicator 73,74 and the delocalization index. Even at the monodeterminantal level, indications of a CrCr bond order significantly reduced relative to the Herzberg number owing to weak interatomic electron sharing of one of the bonds in particular are reported. The other bond can be seen to be of the more favourable sdtype already discussed62. The calculated bond order of 4.2 based on the delocalization index between the QTAIM chromium atoms supports the notion of a formal quintuple bond. The majority of the contributions (62%) are found to originate in the chromium third atomic shell region in position space, which is consistent with earlier results obtained for Mo2(formamidinate)4 displaying a formal quadruple bond75. We note that a significantly lower value of the delocalization index, of 3.6, was obtained for the CrCr bond in 2 in a later study 67, which may indicate a substantial difference in CrCr bonding. By comparing the two ligand families used to stabilize ultrashort CrCr bonds, namely aminopyridinates and amidinates (Fig.4a,b), the two-wings-up arrangement observed for amidinates (Fig.4b) apparently causes much less interligand repulsion within the bimetallic complex than the wing-upwing-down arrangement observed for aminopyridinates (Fig.4a). This allows the generation of a closer NCN pincer and/or an alignment of the ligand orbitals (lone pairs) that bind with chromium towards each other. Both structural consequences may result in a shorter CrCr distance. As a result, steric pressure generated through the introduction of a bulky substituent at the bridging carbon atom should give rise to a further reduced distance between the metal atoms (Fig. 4c). Guanidinates appear to be ideally suited for this purpose. The system is delocalized and thus prefers a planar arrangement of the three Natoms and their residues (Fig.4c). This planar arrangement can be embedded between two bulky 2,6-alkyl groups of the phenyl wings. Consequently, the substituents of the non-metalbonded N atom push both wings further down. A ligand introduced recently, (CH3)2N-C(N-2,6-diisopropylphenyl)2, seems to be ideal in this regard76 and was used successfully to shorten the CrCr bond length to 1.73 (ref. 77). The molecular structure of this compound, 5, is shown in Fig. 5. The space-filling model (Fig.5b) indicates the steric pressure of the methyl groups (brown carbon atom) towards the wing. The CrCr distance of 5 is 0.1 shorter than the distances observed in complexes that held the 30-year record for the shortest metalmetal distances in a stable molecule (Fig.1a). The studies discussed here indicate that the shortening of the metalmetal
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bond of ultrashort chromium homobimetallics is primarily determined by the ligand. This has also been one of the conclusions of a very recently published article78. CrCr bonding competes with Crligand bonding, yielding lower CrCr bond orders and in principle larger CrCr distances for substantial ligand -bond participation. The CrCr distance effect may be hidden by the bracketing effect of the ligand. A stimulating model calculation at the CASPT2 level on the hypothetical complex FCrCrF, in which ligand delocalization is maximally excluded, yielded a CrCr distance of 1.65 . This is similar to that obtained for Cr2, which sets the benchmark for rational ligand design.
Dimers of the 4f and 5f metals could in principle form bond orders even higher than the transition metals. The crucial point is the itinerancy of the f states. For this reason, not the lanthanides, with their atomic-like localized 4f states, but the actinides are considered the interesting candidates. On the experimental side, evidence for these types of species comes from matrix isolation and gas-phase detection79 (U2). Electronic structures of the U2 dimer have been calculated80 at the CASPT2 level of theory including either scalar relativistic effects or even spinorbit coupling. Ten of the 12 valence electrons are found to be chemically active, displaying an exotic bonding pattern with a classical bonding part consisting of one (7sg) and two (6du) doubly occupied bonding orbitals, and a ferromagnetic bonding 81 part with four singly occupied bonding orbitals (6dg, 6dg and 5fu, 5fg). In total, a formal bond order of 3+4/2=5 is obtained. The remaining two electrons are found to be situated in localized 5f
a
CrCr, 1.7293(12)
Figure 5 | Molecular structure of the coordination compounds with the shortest metalmetal bond so far observed. a, Ellipsoid plot of 5. b, Spacefilling model indicating the steric pressure provided by the methyl moieties (brown carbon atom) towards the aryl wing. Colour code as in Fig.1.
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0H$O & & & $O0H
Al1
0H &
C1 Cr2
&U
&U
Cr1
&
0H$O
Figure 6 | Carboalumination of a CrCr quintuple bond. This carboalumination proceeds in analogy to carboalumination reactions observed for CC double and triple bonds, and thus indicates similarities between these classical bonds and quintuple bonding. The blue bonds indicate the unprecedented binding of the (H3C)2Al moiety to the two chromium atoms. Aluminium, white, plus colour code as in Fig.1.
really do with these high-bond-order platforms may become clear if more examples with other metals are available. In fact, during the proofing process for this article, the first examples of molybdenum molybdenum quintuple bonds have appeared85. Understanding chemical bonding better is another important aspect. Quintuple bonding is only a small part of understanding chemical bonds, and we must now seek to place it into a common conceptual framework encompassing all types of chemical bonds.
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