Lanthanides and actinides: Annual survey of their organometallic chemistry covering the year 2018

Actinide tetra-N-heterocyclic carbene ‘sandwiches’

“…The development of N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) ligands has transformed many elds of organometallic chemistry, [1][2][3][4] but the revolutionary application of their unusually strongly s-donating nature in transition metal chemistry has not crossed over as effectively to actinides. [5][6][7] An electrostatic mismatch oen prevents straightforward ligation of neutral NHCs to f-block complexes 5 so just a few weakly bound adducts have been reported, such as the U(VI) complex (Fig. 1A).…”

Tris‐{hydridotris(1‐pyrazolyl)borato}actinide Complexes: Synthesis, Spectroscopy, Crystal Structure, Bonding Properties and Magnetic Behaviour

“…Differences owing to covalency effects are frequently discussed, thus contributing to our understanding of the nature of bonding. [1,2] Severalr eviewsh ave summarised the progress in this field including the annual surveyo no rganometallic chemistry of lanthanides and actinides [3][4][5][6][7][8][9] and the book "Organometallic and CoordinationC hemistry of the Actinides". [10] US colleagues recently reported on the solid-state structure of an Am cyclo-pentadienyl (AmCp 3 )d erivative [11] whereas Evans summarised the lanthanide(II) and actinide(II) chemistry.…”

Noncovalent Interactions at Lanthanide Complexes

“…Due to the unique 4 f electron configuration, lanthanides ( Ln =La, Ce, Pr, Nd, Pm, Sm, Eu, Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, Yb, and Lu) often display high coordination numbers (6–12) and a flexible coordination geometry, but lanthanide complexes with low coordination numbers ranging from 2 to 5 were also isolated by using bulky ligands [1–24] . Although 4 f orbitals are gradually filled with increasing atomic number from La to Lu, the valence electrons of the outermost shell remain similar for all Ln, which leads to quite similar physical and chemical properties of lanthanides.…”