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Relative Stability of closo ‐ closo , closo ‐ nido , and nido ‐ nido Macropolyhedral Boranes: The Role of Orbital Compatibility
Author(s) -
Shameema Oottikkal,
Jemmis Eluvathingal D.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
chemistry – an asian journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.18
H-Index - 106
eISSN - 1861-471X
pISSN - 1861-4728
DOI - 10.1002/asia.200900153
Subject(s) - boranes , polyhedron , borane , chemistry , crystallography , atom (system on chip) , steric effects , compatibility (geochemistry) , computational chemistry , stereochemistry , combinatorics , materials science , mathematics , boron , computer science , organic chemistry , catalysis , embedded system , composite material
The concept of orbital compatibility is used to explain the relative energies of different macropolyhedral structural patterns such as closo ‐ closo , closo ‐ nido , and nido ‐ nido . A large polyhedral borane condenses preferentially with a smaller polyhedron owing to orbital compatibility. Calculations carried out at the B3LYP/6‐31G* level show that the macropolyhedron closo (12)‐ closo (6) is the most preferred structural pattern among the face‐sharing closo‐closo systems. The relative stabilities of four‐shared‐atom closo ‐ closo , three‐shared‐atom closo ‐ closo , three‐shared‐atom closo ‐ nido , edge‐sharing closo ‐ nido , and edge‐sharing nido ‐ nido structures are in accordance with the difference in the number of vertices of the individual polyhedra of the macropolyhedra. When the difference in the number of vertices of the individual polyhedra is large, the stability of the macropolyhedra is also large. Calculations further show that the orbital compatibility plays an important role in deciding the stability of the macropolyhedral boranes with more than two polyhedral units. The dependence of the orbital compatibility on the relative stability of the macropolyhedron varies with other factors such as inherent stability of the individual polyhedron and steric factors.