Coordination chemistry and bonding analysis of tetranuclear transition metal pyrene sandwich complexes

Geometry optimizations have been performed on the M-4(Pyr)(2) (M = Ti-Ni, Pd and Pt, Pyr = C16H10) complexes by means of DFT method using BP86 and mPW1PW91 functionals combined to the TZP basis set. The M-4 moiety encapsulated between two pyrene ligands tends to establish M-L bonding with various hapticies from eta(2) to eta(6). In accordance with the coordination modes, the pyrene behaves as neutral, dianionic, or tetraanionic ligand. For the Ti, V, and Fe, the low-spin (S = 0) and the high-spin (S = 1) structures are isoenergetic, while the Cr, Mn, and Co structures prefer the high-spin states. The Ni, Pd, and Pt structures are more favorable in low-spin state. The zigzag metallic chain is predicted to be more stable than that of the two-dimensional sheet for the Pd complexes. The spin state changes of the studied complexes in their ground states could be characterized in some cases by different molecular structure modifications (structural isomerisation, where structural modifications accompany the spin state modification like as bonds and angles), electronic configurations (low-spin or high-spin), or oxidation states with respect to the metal charges, in agreement with the metal nature. The optimized structures obtained by both BP86 and mPW1PW91 methods are consistent to each other, where the energetic parameters follow similar tendencies regarding the stability order between isomers.