Actinide-lanthanide single electron metal-metal bond formed in mixed-valence di-metallofullerenes

Identifier:  imarina:9331070

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/imarina9331070

Authors:  Yan, YJ; Abella, L; Sun, R; Fang, YH; Roselló, Y; Shen, Y; Jin, MH; Rodríguez-Fortea, A; de Graaf, C; Meng, QY; Yao, YR; Echegoyen, L; Wang, BW; Gao, S; Poblet, JM; Chen, N

Abstract:
Understanding metal-metal bonding involving f-block elements has been a challenging goal in chemistry. Here we report a series of mixed-valence di-metallofullerenes, ThDy@C2n (2n = 72, 76, 78, and 80) and ThY@C2n (2n = 72 and 78), which feature single electron actinide-lanthanide metal-metal bonds, characterized by structural, spectroscopic and computational methods. Crystallographic characterization unambiguously confirmed that Th and Y or Dy are encapsulated inside variably sized fullerene carbon cages. The ESR study of ThY@D3h(5)-C78 shows a doublet as expected for an unpaired electron interacting with Y, and a SQUID magnetometric study of ThDy@D3h(5)-C78 reveals a high-spin ground state for the whole molecule. Theoretical studies further confirm the presence of a single-electron bonding interaction between Y or Dy and Th, due to a significant overlap between hybrid spd orbitals of the two metals.© 2023. Springer Nature Limited.