18-electron rule transition metal complex

Many transition metal complexes including Ni(CO)4 obey the 18 electron rule, which IS to transition metal complexes as the octet rule is to mam group elements like carbon and oxygen It states that... 

With an atomic number of 28 nickel has the electron conflguration [Ar]4s 3c (ten valence electrons) The 18 electron rule is satisfied by adding to these ten the eight elec Irons from four carbon monoxide ligands A useful point to remember about the 18 electron rule when we discuss some reactions of transition metal complexes is that if the number is less than 18 the metal is considered coordinatively unsaturated and can accept additional ligands... 

The 18 electron rule is a general but not universal guide for assessing whether a certain transition metal complex is stable or not Both of the following are stable compounds but only one obeys the 18 electron rule Which one" ... 

Because the electron-counting paradigm incorporates the 18-electron rule when appHed to transition-metal complexes, exceptions can be expected as found for classical coordination complexes. Relatively minor exceptions are found in (Tj -C H )2Fe2C2BgHg [54854-86-3] (52) and [Ni(B2QH22)2] A [11141-32-5] (53). The former Q,n electrons) is noticeably distorted from an idealized stmcture, and the latter is reminiscent of the and complexes discussed above. An extremely deficient electron count is obtained for complexes such as P7036-06-9] which have essentially undistorted... 

For many species the effective atomic number (FAN) or 18- electron rule is helpful. Low spin transition-metal complexes having the FAN of the next noble gas (Table 5), which have 18 valence electrons, are usually inert, and normally react by dissociation. Fach normal donor is considered to contribute two electrons the remainder are metal valence electrons. Sixteen-electron complexes are often inert, if these are low spin and square-planar, but can undergo associative substitution and oxidative-addition reactions. 

The dominant features which control the stoichiometry of transition-metal complexes relate to the relative sizes of the metal ions and the ligands, rather than the niceties of electronic configuration. You will recall that the structures of simple ionic solids may be predicted with reasonable accuracy on the basis of radius-ratio rules in which the relative ionic sizes of the cations and anions in the lattice determine the structure adopted. Similar effects are important in determining coordination numbers in transition-metal compounds. In short, it is possible to pack more small ligands than large ligands about a metal ion of a given size. 

Electron configurations of transition metal complexes are governed by the principles described in Chapters. The Pauli exclusion principle states that no two electrons can have identical descriptions, and Hund s rule requires that all unpaired electrons have the same spin orientation. These concepts are used in Chapter 8 for atomic configurations and in Chapters 9 and 10 to describe the electron configurations of molecules. They also determine the electron configurations of transition metal complexes. 

In general it is unnecessary to spend much time adjusting the power level. The general rule is to adjust the power to about 10 db attenuation for organic radicals and to use full power for transition metal complexes and those organometallics where the unpaired electron is primarily located on the metal. 

The metal complexes discussed thus far bear little resemblance to the vast majority of common transition-metal complexes. Transition-metal chemistry is dominated by octahedral, square-planar, and tetrahedral coordination geometries, mixed ligand sets, and adherence to the 18-electron rule. The following three sections introduce donor-acceptor interactions that, although not unique to bonding in the d block, make the chemistry of the transition metals so distinctive. 

A persistent feature of qualitative models of transition-metal bonding is the supposed importance of p orbitals in the skeletal hybridization.76 Pauling originally envisioned dsp2 hybrids for square-planar or d2sp3 hybrids for octahedral bonding, both of 50% p character. Moreover, the 18-electron rule for transition-metal complexes seems to require participation of nine metal orbitals, presumably the five d, one s, and three p orbitals of the outermost [( — l)d]5[ s]1[ p]3 quantum shell. 

However, we have shown how the 18-electron rule is commonly satisfied in the absence of any significant p-orbital participation, on the basis of hypervalent 3c/4e cu-bonding interactions wholly within the framework of normal-valent sd" hybridization. Results of NBO and Mulliken analyses of high-level wavefunctions for transition-metal complexes commonly exhibit only paltry occupation of the outer p orbitals (comparable in this respect to the weak contributions of d-type polarization functions in main-group bonding). 

The first borinate-transition metal complex to be prepared was actually the first known derivative of borin. Bis(cyclopentadienide)cobalt (94) reacts with organic halides and was analogously found to react with boron halides in a redox reaction to give (95), followed by an insertion to yield (cyclopentadienide)(borinato)cobalt (97) (72CB3413). The product composition depends on the ratio of reactants. Compound (97) is the main product (80% yield when R = Ph, X = Br) when the molar ratio between (94) and the boron halide is 2.5 1. A second and slower insertion occurs to give (28) when (97) is treated with another equivalent of the boron halide (Scheme 13). Compounds (28), (29) and (97) have one electron more than predicted by the 187r-electron rule for transition metal complexes. They are red in colour and, of course, paramagnetic. The mixed complexes (97) are thermally labile, in contrast to (28) and (29), which can be heated to 180 °C and sublimed at 90 °C. Their ionization potentials are low and the complexes are sensitive to air. 

Since polynuclear complexes and cluster compounds are in general rather complicated species, the application of quantitative methods for describing bonding is not only difficult but also impractical. Qualitative approaches and empirical rules often play an important role in treating such cases. We have used the octet rule and bond valence to describe the structure and bonding of boranes and their derivatives (Sections 13.3 and 13.4). Now we use the 18-electron rule and bond valence to discuss the bonding and structure of polynuclear transition-metal complexes and clusters. 

The metal atoms in most transition-metal complexes and clusters obey the 18-electron rule. The bond valence, b, of the skeleton of complex [M Lp] can be calculated from the formula... 

Dinuclear transition-metal complexes conforming to the 1 8-electron rule... 

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