NHC-Stabilised Acetylene-How Far Can the Analogy Be Pushed?

Dayne C Georgiou; Lili Zhao; David J D Wilson; Gernot Frenking; Jason L Dutton

doi:10.1002/chem.201605495

NHC-Stabilised Acetylene-How Far Can the Analogy Be Pushed?

Chemistry. 2017 Feb 24;23(12):2926-2934. doi: 10.1002/chem.201605495. Epub 2017 Jan 27.

Authors

Dayne C Georgiou¹, Lili Zhao^{2

3}, David J D Wilson¹, Gernot Frenking^{2

3

4}, Jason L Dutton¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, 3086, Australia.
² Institute of Advanced Synthesis, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, 211816, China.
³ Fachbereich Chemie, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Hans-Meerwein-Strasse 4, 35032, Marburg, Germany.
⁴ Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), P.K. 1072, 20080, Donostia, Spain.

PMID: 27935139
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201605495

Abstract

Experimental studies suggest that the compound (NHC^bz )₂ C₂ H₂ can be considered as a complex of a distorted acetylene fragment which is stabilised by benzoannelated N-heterocyclic carbene ligands (NHC^bz )→(C₂ H₂ )←(NHC^bz ). A quantum chemical analysis of the electronic structures shows that the description with dative bonds is more favourable than with electron-sharing double bonds (NHC^bz )=(C₂ H₂ )=(NHC^bz ).

Keywords: bonding analysis; dative bonding; metal carbene complexes; quantum chemical calculations.