A Very Short Be-Be Distance but No Bond: Synthesis and Bonding Analysis of Ng-Be2 O2 -Ng' (Ng, Ng'=Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe)

Qingnan Zhang; Wan-Lu Li; Lili Zhao; Mohua Chen; Mingfei Zhou; Jun Li; Gernot Frenking

doi:10.1002/chem.201605994

A Very Short Be-Be Distance but No Bond: Synthesis and Bonding Analysis of Ng-Be₂ O₂ -Ng' (Ng, Ng'=Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe)

Chemistry. 2017 Feb 10;23(9):2035-2039. doi: 10.1002/chem.201605994. Epub 2017 Jan 23.

Authors

Qingnan Zhang¹, Wan-Lu Li², Lili Zhao³, Mohua Chen¹, Mingfei Zhou¹, Jun Li², Gernot Frenking^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, Department of Chemistry, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, P. R. China.
² Department of Chemistry and Key Laboratory of Organic Optoelectronics & Molecular Engineering of Ministry of Education, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, P. R. China.
³ Institute of Advanced Synthesis, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Jiangsu National Synergetic Innovation Center for Advanced Materials, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing, 211816, P. R. China.
⁴ Fachbereich Chemie, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Hans-Meerwein-Strasse, 35043, Marburg, Germany.
⁵ Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), P.K. 1072, 20080, Donostia, Spain.

PMID: 28009065
DOI: 10.1002/chem.201605994

Abstract

Short interatomic distances below standard values for a single bond are usually identified with double or triple bonds. The synthesis and spectroscopic characterization of a molecule is reported where the distance between two beryllium atoms is shorter than a standard double bond but there is no bond. The cyclic diberyllium dioxide Be₂ O₂ molecule, which is coordinated by two noble gas atoms in Ng-Be₂ O₂ -Ng' (Ng, Ng'=Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe) was isolated and spectroscopically identified in low-temperature matrices. The complexes possess very short Be-Be distances, but the analysis of the electronic structure reveals that there is no chemical bond.

Keywords: bonding analysis; matrix isolation; noble gas complexes; quantum chemical calculations.