Side-On Bonded Beryllium Dinitrogen Complexes

Guohai Deng; Sudip Pan; Guanjun Wang; Lili Zhao; Mingfei Zhou; Gernot Frenking

doi:10.1002/anie.202002621

Side-On Bonded Beryllium Dinitrogen Complexes

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2020 Jun 22;59(26):10603-10609. doi: 10.1002/anie.202002621. Epub 2020 Apr 14.

Authors

Guohai Deng¹, Sudip Pan^{2

3}, Guanjun Wang¹, Lili Zhao², Mingfei Zhou¹, Gernot Frenking^{2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, Department of Chemistry, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysts and Innovative Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200438, China.
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, 35043, Marburg, Germany.

Abstract

The preparation and spectroscopic identification of the complexes NNBe(η² -N₂ ) and (NN)₂ Be(η² -N₂ ) and the energetically higher lying isomers Be(NN)₂ and Be(NN)₃ are reported. NNBe(η² -N₂ ) and (NN)₂ Be(η² -N₂ ) are the first examples of covalently side-on bonded N₂ adducts of a main-group element. The analysis of the electronic structure using modern methods of quantum chemistry suggests that NNBe(η² -N₂ ) and (NN)₂ Be(η² -N₂ ) should be classified as π complexes rather than metalladiazirines.

Keywords: IR spectroscopy; beryllium; matrix isolation; nitrogen; structure elucidation.