Closo versus hypercloso metallaboranes: a DFT study

Abstract

The structures and electronic relationship of 9-, 10-, 11-, and 12-vertex closo and hypercloso (isocloso) metallaboranes are explored using DFT calculations. The role of the transition metal in stabilizing the hypercloso borane structures is explained using the concept of orbital compatibility. The hypercloso structures, C₆H₆MB_n-1H_n-1 (n = 9-12; M = Fe, Ru, and Os) are taken as model complexes. Calculations on metal free polyhedral borane B_nH_n suggest that n vertex hypercloso structures need only n skeleton electron pairs (SEPs), but the structure will have one or more six-degree vertices, whereas the corresponding closo structures with n + 1 SEPs have only four- and five-degree vertices. This high-degree vertex of hypercloso structures can be effectively occupied by transition metal fragments with their highly diffused orbitals. Calculations further show that a heavy transition metal with more diffused orbitals prefers over a light transition metal to form hypercloso geometry. This is in accordance with the fact that there are more experimentally characterized hypercloso structures with the heavy transition metals. The size of the exohedral ligands attached to the metal atom also plays a role in deciding the stability of the hypercloso structure. The interaction between the borane and the metal fragments in the hypercloso geometry is analyzed using the fragment molecular orbital approach. The interconversion of the closo and hypercloso structures by the addition and removal of the electrons is also discussed in terms of the correlation diagrams.