Bonding 18-electron rule

Protonated methane (CH ) does not violate the octet rule of carbon. A bonding electron pair (responsible for covalent bonding between C and H atoms) is forced into sharing with the proton, resulting in 2 electron-3 center bonding (2e-3c) (see Chapter 10). Higher alkanes are protonated similarly. 

Not all ligands use just two electrons to bond to transition metals Chromium has the electron configuration [Ar]4s 3rf (6 valence electrons) and needs 12 more to satisfy the 18 electron rule In the compound (benzene)tricarbonylchromium 6 of these 12 are the tt elec Irons of the benzene ring the remammg 6 are from the three carbonyl ligands... 

Structure. The CO molecule coordinates in the ways shown diagrammaticaHy in Figure 1. Terminal carbonyls are the most common. Bridging carbonyls are common in most polynuclear metal carbonyls. As depicted, metal—metal bonds also play an important role in polynuclear metal carbonyls. The metal atoms in carbonyl complexes show a strong tendency to use ak their valence orbitals in forming bonds. These include the n + 1)5 and the n + l)p orbitals. As a result, use of the 18-electron rule is successflil in predicting the stmcture of most metal carbonyls. 

Fenocene has an even more interesting stmcture. A central iron is ir-bonded to two cyclopentadienyl ligands in what is aptly described as a sandwich. It, too, obeys the 18-electron rule. Each cyclopentadienyl ligand contributes five electrons for a total of ten and iron, with an electron configuration of [Ar]45 34i contributes eight. Alternatively, fenocene can be viewed as being derived from Fe " (six valence electrons) and two aromatic cyclopentadienide rings (six electrons each). 

Although the cyclopentadienyls dominate the aromatic chemistry of this group, bis(arene) compounds are also well established. They are able to satisfy the 18-electron rule as the dications, [M(arene)2] " or by the two rings adopting different bonding modes one tj the other tj". ... 

Because they possess an odd number of valence electrons the elements of this group can only satisfy the 18-electron rule in their carbonyls if M-M bonds are present. In accord with this, mononuclear carbonyls are not formed. Instead [M2(CO)s], [M4(CO)i2] and [M6(CO)i6] are the principal binary carbonyls of these elements. But reduction of [Co2(CO)g] with, for instance, sodium amalgam in benzene yields the monomeric and tetrahedral, 18-electron ion, [Co(CO)4] , acidification of which gives the pale yellow hydride, [HCo(CO)4]. Reductions employing Na metal in liquid NH3 yield the super-reduced [M(CO)3] (M = Co, Rh, Ir) containing these elements in their lowest formal oxidation state. 

On the basis of the 18-electron rule, the d s configuration is expected to lead to carbonyls of formula [M(CO)4] and this is found for nickel. [Ni(CO)4], the first metal carbonyl to be discovered, is an extremely toxic, colourless liquid (mp —19.3°, bp 42.2°) which is tetrahedral in the vapour and in the solid (Ni-C 184pm, C-O 115 pm). Its importance in the Mond process for manufacturing nickel metal has already been mentioned as has the absence of stable analogues of Pd and Pt. It may be germane to add that the introduction of halides (which are a-bonded) reverses the situation [NiX(CO)3] (X = Cl, Br, I) are very unstable, the yellow [Pd"(CO)Cl2]n is somewhat less so, whereas the colourless [Pt (CO)2Cl2] and [PtX3(CO)] are quite stable. 

The Lewis structures encountered in Chapter 2 are two-dimensional representations of the links between atoms—their connectivity—and except in the simplest cases do not depict the arrangement of atoms in space. The valence-shell electron-pair repulsion model (VSEPR model) extends Lewis s theory of bonding to account for molecular shapes by adding rules that account for bond angles. The model starts from the idea that because electrons repel one another, the shapes of simple molecules correspond to arrangements in which pairs of bonding electrons lie as far apart as possible. Specifically ... 

This mode of calculation has been called the EAN rule (effective atomic number rule). It is valid for arbitrary metal clusters (closo and others) if the number of electrons is sufficient to assign one electron pair for every M-M connecting line between adjacent atoms, and if the octet rule or the 18-electron rule is fulfilled for main group elements or for transition group elements, respectively. The number of bonds b calculated in this way is a limiting value the number of polyhedron edges in the cluster can be greater than or equal to b, but never smaller. If it is equal, the cluster is electron precise. 

Most current versions of the generalized (8-N) rule differ in notation or in their treatment of non-bonding electrons. Although the lack of a consistent notation causes some confusion, formal problems of this type will not be considered here. Any one scheme of notation seems just as good as the others but, for convenience, that previously used by one of the present authors (22) is adopted with some necessary modifications. 

When the manganese atom (Z = 25) is considered, we see that the addition of five CO molecules would bring the total number of electrons to 35, whereas six CO ligands would bring the total to 37. In neither case is the 18-electron mle obeyed. In accord with these observations, neither Mn(CO)5 nor Mn(CO)6 is a stable complex. What is stable is the complex [Mn(CO)5]2 (sometimes written as Mn2(CO)10) in which there is a metal-metal bond between the manganese atoms, which allows the 18-electron rule to be obeyed. 

The 18-electron rule is especially useful when considering complexes containing ligands such as cyclo-heptatriene, C7H8, abbreviated as cht. This ligand, which has the following structure, can bond to metals in more than one way because each double bond can function by donating two electrons ... 

The number of complexes for which the 18-electron rule is an overriding bonding condition is very large. It is an essential tool for interpreting the bonding in organometallic compounds and it will be considered many times in the chapters to follow. 

It is interesting to note that the products of these reactions obey the 18-electron rule. Cobalt has 27 electrons, and it acquires 6 from the three CO ligands and 3 from NO, which gives a total of 36. It is easy to see that Fe(CO)2(NO)2 and Mn(CO)4NO also obey the 18-electron rule. Because NO is considered as a donor of three electrons, two NO groups usually replace three CO ligands. This may not be readily apparent in some cases because metal-metal bonds are broken in addition to the substitution reactions. 

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