Technetium clusters

This facile approach to the carbene chemistry of rhenium has not yet been investigated with technetium. Further reactions with the technetium cluster 44a have been performed in C6H6/HC1 to yield the compound [( 6H6)Tc(CO)3]+ (66) which previously had only been described for manganese and rhenium [81]. "Tc-NMR of the latter compound exhibits a resonance at -1983 ppm (relative to [Tc04]- ), and it therefore fits very well into the range proposed for Tc(I) complexes. 

Metal-metal (M-M) bonds, first noted in the early sixties, occur in several thousand transition-metal compounds [1]. Complex technetium compounds and compounds with M-M bonds (clusters) have been studied more extensively than many other classes of inorganic compounds. Increasing interest in technetium compounds is due to the practical uses of the "mTc isotope, which ranks first among radioactive isotopes used in nuclear medicine diagnostics [2-4]. On the other hand, technetium clusters are an interesting object for theoretical studies, because until recently, they were the only compounds in which the presence of these anomalous chemical bonds was thought possible. 

Although there are a lot of publications on the chemistry of technetium [2-4] and transition-metal clusters [1,5-8], the chemistry of technetium clusters was insufficiently studied until the early eighties [1,2]. Nevertheless, the available scanty data on the compounds with Tc-Tc bonds inspired hope that interesting results would be obtained in the chemistry of technetium in general, in radiochemistry, and in the chemistry of transition-metal cluster compounds. The anticipated results were actually obtained [9-15] and the conclusion was drawn that technetium had a number of anomalous cluster-forming properties [9]. This review looks at the detailed studies of these properties and their interpretation in terms of electronic structure theory. 

It should be noted that the above classification system of technetium cluster compounds is not the only possible one. In section 4 another classification is described, which is based on thermal stability and the mechanism of thermal decomposition. Section 2.2 is concerned with the classification based on methods of synthesizing cluster compounds. The classifications based on specific properties of clusters do not at all belittle the advantages of the basic structural classification they broaden the field of application of the latter, because for a better understanding and explanation of any chemical, physico-chemical and physical properties it is necessary to deal directly or indirectly with the molecular and/or electronic structures of the clusters. 

With autoclave syntheses a high yield of clusters is achieved, and it is possible for researchers to follow the reaction path in solution by gradually changing (from experiment to experiment) the working parameters of the synthesis (temperature, pressure, exposure at working temperatures, etc). All these advantages of the autoclave technique have resulted in an abundance of new forms of technetium clusters (particularly, polynuclear ones) because it has been possible to develop and improve the method of obtaining these compounds. 

Binuclear Technetium Cluster Compounds with the d4-d5 Electronic... 

These compounds constitute the most numerous groups of technetium clusters which have been investigated (Table 1, compounds 8-16). In our view this is due to the greater stability of the d4-d5 clusters compared with the d4-d4 clusters and also the fact that compounds with the [Tc2Cl8]3 anions were obtained initially for technetium [22,24,42,43] and were subsequently employed to synthesize new technetium clusters [11,60-62],... 

Table 1. Crystal data of the technetium cluster compounds... 

Binuclear Technetium Clusters Compounds with the d -d Electronic... 

Figure 5 shows a scheme for synthesizing all the bromides of polynuclear technetium clusters presently known. Table 2 summarizes details of their ap-... 

Table 2. Appearances and main properties of polynuclear bromide technetium clusters [11, 44, 53, 72, 76]...

Figure If shows the molecular structure of the [Tc6Br6(/t3-Br)5]2- anion. In general, the structure of this anion is similar to the structure of the well-known octahedral halogenide clusters of molybdenum and tungsten [M6X8]4 + (X = Cl,Br, I) [5,8]. The principal difference is that the eight equivalent positions of bridging bromine atoms in the technetium clusters are not fully occupied.

From the results presented it follows that the driving force behind the growth of technetium clusters in the process of their reduction is a decrease in the total electron energy of the ions due to the formation of M-M bonds. In fact, as is shown in Fig. 6, if the M-M bonds were absent the total electron energy of technetium complexes would be considerably higher and the complex would be unstable. However, besides purely thermodynamic reasons leading to the cluster formation, there should also be kinetic possibilities for these processes to take place. This aspect of technetium cluster formation is partially considered below. 

The paper electrophoresis experiments carried out to study the mobility of polynuclear technetium clusters in aqueous solutions of HX of varying acidity, as a mobile phase, showed that these clusters were also characterized by reversible reactions such as (5) without leading to destruction of M-M bonds. On the other hand, an autoclave recrystallization of the polynuclear clusters at 200-220°C in an atmosphere of argon from concentrated solutions of HX led to a partial destruction of M-M bonds and the formation of binuclear complexes [Tc2X8]3 and [Tc,X6]2. This indirectly shows that reactions (6) and (7), leading to the destruction of M-M bonds, are likely in solutions of polynuclear clusters [15]. 

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