CHARGE DENSITY STUDY OF AN IRON NITROSYL COMPLEX

 

Yu Wanga and J.J. Leeb

 

aDepartment of Chemistry, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; bNational Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, Hsin-Chu, Taiwan (yuwang@xtal.ch.ntu.edu.tw)

 

 

Charge density and bond characterization have been investigated on an Iron-nitrosyl dithiocarbamate complex, [Fe (NO)(S2CNC2H6)2] in terms of accurate single crystal diffraction at 100K and an open-shell DFT calculation. The iron atom is five- coordinated with four sulfur and one nitrogen atoms in a square pyramidal geometry, the site symmetry is roughly C2v. The iron atom is 0.6261(1) above the plane of four sulfur atoms, the nitrosyl group (NO) is in the axial direction perpendicular to the plane. Unfortunately, the oxygen atom exhibits positional disorder.

The complex is related to a potential free radical scavenger, this study may shine some light on how it is so via electron density distribution, especially at the iron site and at the NO group. It is known that NO ligand could be served as a radical neutral species or NO+, a nitrosyl, or NO- , a nitroxide group. Thus the unpaired electron can be located either at Fe or at the NO group. According to the electron density distribution based on the multipole model and on the DFT calculation, the electronic configuration of iron atom is 4s13d6, therefore a FeI and NO+ ligand is a nitrosyl group. In other words, the unpaired electron is mostly localized at Fe not on the NO ligand, which is consistent with the conclusion made from single crystal EPR and Moessbauer measurements. Topological analysis on the total electron density will give the bond characterization in terms of topological properties associated with bond critical points. The VSCC of Fe in this five coordinated complex is quite interesting, the detail description and its correlation to the metal ligand bond will be presented.