EMSL offers insight into properties of dinuclear metalloradicals

For the first time, researchers have synthesized, isolated, and fully characterized a type of metal-containing complex that was before thought to be too unstable to study. This research challenges the paradigm that metal-bridging ligands are required to stabilize dimetallic complexes with an odd number of electrons and is providing important insight into metal-metal interactions in biology and materials.

The type of complex at the center of this research is a dinuclear metalloradical with no metal-metal bridging ligand. Held together by only a metal-metal bond and missing one electron, these dimers are related to biological dinuclear complexes whose job is to carry out important chemical transformations.

At the heart of what made this highly collaborative effort between EMSL staff and users possible is a new and unique capability developed as part of EMSL's Intramural Program that is designed to integrate magnetic resonance measurements and electronic structure calculations to understand the structure and dynamics of complex systems.

More information:
van der Eide EF, P Yang, ED Walter, T Liu, RM Bullock. 2012. “Dinuclear Metalloradicals Featuring Unsupported Metal–Metal Bonds.”Angewandte Chemie International Edition 51(33):8361–8364. DOI: 10.1002/anie.201203531 . onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10 … e.201203531/abstract

Provided by Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory