Metal aromaticity

Metal aromaticity or metalloaromaticity is the concept of aromaticity, found in many organic compounds, extended to metals and metal-containing compounds. The first experimental evidence for the existence of aromaticity in metals was found in aluminium cluster compounds of the type MAl4− where M stands for lithium, sodium or copper. These anions can be generated in a helium gas by laser vaporization of an aluminium / lithium carbonate composite or a copper or sodium / aluminium alloy, separated and selected by mass spectrometry and analyzed by photoelectron spectroscopy. The evidence for aromaticity in these compounds is based on several considerations. Computational chemistry shows that these aluminium clusters consist of a tetranuclear Al42− plane and a counterion at the apex of a square pyramid. The Al42− unit is perfectly planar and is not perturbed the presence of the counterion or even the presence of two counterions in the neutral compound M2Al4. In addition its HOMO is calculated to be a doubly occupied delocalized pi system making it obey Hückel's rule. Finally a match exists between the calculated values and the experimental photoelectron values for the energy required to remove the first 4 valence electrons. The first fully metal aromatic compound was a cyclogallane with a Ga32- core discovered by Gregory Robinson in 1995. D-orbital aromaticity is found in trinuclear tungsten W3O9− and molybdenum Mo3O9− metal clusters generated by laser vaporization of the pure metals in the presence of oxygen in a helium stream. In these clusters the three metal centers are bridged by oxygen and each metal has two terminal oxygen atoms. The first signal in the photoelectron spectrum corresponds to the removal of the valence electron with the lowest energy in the anion to the neutral M3O9 compound. This energy turns out to be comparable to that of bulk tungsten trioxide and molybdenum trioxide. The photoelectric signal is also broad which suggests a large difference in conformation between the anion and the neutral species.