Molybdenum clusters bond distances

For the molybdenum and cobalt-containing cluster, the metal core is found in a butterfly arrangement, with the two molybdenum atoms as the wing tips and the N-Co-Co array as the central core. The bond distance between the oxygen of the bound NO and the molybdenum is 2.158 A. The O-Mo interaction would seem attributable to the oxophilicity of molybdenum [74]. 

In order to make these points clearer, interatomic distances in representative compounds are listed in Table VII. The distortion of Mo6 should be caused by electronic effects from the individual cluster units and/or steric effects due to the linkage of the clusters. At one time the electronic effects were considered more important based on the band calculations (58, 84). The strong eg Mo rf-bonding character of the conduction band causes contraction of the Mo octahedron, and the filling of the tlu(Oh) - eu (S6) and t2u (Oh) —> au (S6) band is related to the smaller intratriangle distance. Namely, the larger shift of electrons from Mx and chalcogen atoms to the molybdenum atoms is related to smaller distortion of the Mo6 octahedra. 

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