Metal–ligand multiple bond

In organometallic chemistry, a metal–ligand multiple bond describes the interaction of certain ligands with a metal with a bond order greater than one. Coordination complexes featuring multiply bonded ligands are of both scholarly and practical interest. Transition metal carbene complexes catalyze the olefin metathesis reaction. Metal oxo intermediates are pervasive in oxidation catalysis. As a cautionary note, the classification of a metal ligand bond as being "multiple" bond order is ambiguous and even arbitrary because bond order is a formalism. Furthermore, the usage of multiple bonding is not uniform. Symmetry arguments suggest that most ligands engage metals via multiple bonds. The term 'metal ligand multiple bond" is often reserved for ligands of the type CRn and NRn (n = 0, 1, 2) and ORn (n = 0, 1) where R is H or an organic substituent, or pseudohalide. Historically, CO and NO+ are not included in this classification, nor are halides. In coordination chemistry, a pi-donor ligand is a kind of ligand endowed with filled non-bonding orbitals that overlap with metal-based orbitals. Their interaction is complementary to the behavior of pi-acceptor ligands. The existence of terminal oxo ligands for the early transition metals is one consequence of this kind of bonding. Classic pi-donor ligands are oxide (O2−), nitride (N3−), imide (RN2−), alkoxide (RO−), amide (R2N−), and fluoride. For late transition metals, strong pi-donors form anti-bonding interactions with the filled d-levels, with consequences for spin state, redox potentials, and ligand exchange rates. Pi-donor ligands are low in the spectrochemical series. Metals bound to so-called triply bonded carbyne, imide, nitride (nitrido), and oxide (oxo) ligands are generally assigned to high oxidation states with low d electron counts. The high oxidation state stabilizes the highly reduced ligands. The low d electron count allow for many bonds between ligands and the metal center. A d0 metal center can accommodate up to 9 bonds without violating the 18 electron rule, whereas a d6 species can only accommodate 6 bonds.