Valence bond structures for molecules with 5-electron 3-centre bonding units

Harcourt, Richard D. and Klapötke, Thomas M. (2018): Valence bond structures for molecules with 5-electron 3-centre bonding units. In: Computational and Theoretical Chemistry, Vol. 1139: pp. 50-54

Abstract

It is shown how use of valence bond structures of the type (sic) circle (sic) circle (sic) for a 5-electron 3-centre bonding unit can help to provide compact valence bond representations of the electronic structures for NO2, N2O4, excited O-3 and SO2, SO3, SO2Y2 (with Y = OH-, O- or F), ClO2, SO2-, S2O42-, [Cu(H2O)(6)](2+) and an N-H-N linkage. Without atomic valence shell expansions, many of these structures provide electronic interpretations for hypervalent 19th century type bond diagrams. As an example, it is shown that the 5-electron 3-centre valence bond structure for N2O4 (which is equivalent to resonance between 144 canonical Lewis structures) provides an electronic interpretation for Frankland's 1866 bond diagram with pentavalent nitrogen atoms.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Chemistry and Pharmacy > Department of Chemistry
• Subjects: 500 Science > 540 Chemistry
• ISSN: 2210-271X
• Language: English