Abstract:
In the last decades, great progress was made to obtain compounds with heavier low-valent tetrels Si – Pb that offer fascinating properties and reactivity. To stabilize the reactive cores, N-heterocyclic carbenes as well as transition metals can be employed and allow the isolation of molecules like iminosilenylidenes and tetrylidyne complexes.
Quantum chemistry is a very useful tool here, enabling the chemist to gaze beyond the limitations of the experiment, study the bond situation or make predictions of further reactivity for molecules not (yet) isolated. Such an investigation for heavier group 10 tetrylidyne complexes suggests considerably bent metallotetrylene isomers for Sn and Pb with an unexpected σ(M→E) donation motif, and will be presented in this lecture.