Serendipity and The Renaissance of Inorganic Chemistry

During the first half of the 20th century it was understood that bonds between carbon and transition metals are weak and very reactive. For 

Reports of a rock-stable organo-iron compound provoked considerable interest in the chemical community. At Harvard, R. B. Woodward and a junior faculty colleague, Geoffrey Wilkinson (1921-96), agreed that the compound s structure was likely to be the unprecedented sandwich represented by the figure to the right. With two young 

In 1951, Michael J. S. Dewar (1918-97) published a molecular orbital (MO) theory of bonding between unsaturated compounds and transition metals later augmented by Joseph Chatt (1914-94) and Leonard A. Duncanson. It recognized o-type overlap of an occupied 7t-orbital on the ligand (e.g., ethylene, benzene, cyclopentadienide) with a vacant d-orbital of appropriate symmetry on the transition metal, coupled with back-donation through 7t-type overlap of an occupied d-orbital on the metal with a vacant (antibonding) 7t -type orbital on the ligand. 

A) Gas-phase structure of diborane (B2H ) with structural parameters determined by electron diffraction B) representation by Longuet-Higgins and Lipscomb of three-center, two-electron bonds C) molecular orbital description of three-center, two-electron bonding 

STRUCTURE AND BONDING IN DIBORANE (B2H6) AN ELECTRON-DEEICIENT MOLECULE 

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