Major Differences between the Binuclear Manganese Boronyl Carbonyl Mn2(BO)2(CO)9 and Its Isoelectronic Chromium Carbonyl Analogue Cr2(CO)11

Abstract

The lowest energy structures of the manganese boronyl carbonyl Mn2(BO)2(CO)9 by more than 8 kcal/mol are found to have a single end-to-end bridging BO group bonding to one manganese atom through its boron atom and to the other manganese atom through its oxygen atom. The long Mn···Mn distances in these structures indicate the lack of direct manganese-manganese bonding as confirmed by essentially zero Wiberg bond indices. These Mn2(BO)2(CO)9 structures are favored thermochemically by more than 25 kcal/mol over dissociation into mononuclear fragments and thus appear to be viable synthetic objectives. This contrasts with the isoelectronic Cr2(CO)11 system, which is predicted to be disfavored relative to the mononuclear fragments Cr(CO)6 + Cr(CO)5. Analogous Mn2(BO)2(CO)9 structures with an end-to-end bridging CO group lie ∼17 kcal/mol in energy above the corresponding structures with end-to-end bridging BO groups. The lowest energy Mn2(BO)2(CO)9 structures without an end-to-end bridging BO group provide unprecedented examples of the coupling of two terminal BO groups to form a terminal dioxodiborene (B2O2) ligand with a B-B distance of ∼1.9 Å. Still higher energy Mn2(BO)2(CO)9 structures include singly bridged and doubly semibridged structures analogous to the previously optimized lowest energy Cr2(CO)11 structures.