Electronic structure and bonding of the dinuclear metal M2(CO)10 decacarbonyls: applications of natural orbitals for chemical valence

The nature of the chemical metal–metal bond in M 2 (CO) 10 (M = Mn, Re, Tc) dinuclear decacarbonyls complexes was investigated for the first time using the natural orbital chemical valence (NOCV) approach combined with the extended transition state (ETS) for energy decomposition analysis (EDA). The optimized geometries carried out at different levels of theory BP86, BLYP, BLYPD and BP86D, showed that the latter method, i.e., BP86D, led to the best agreement with X-ray experimental measurements. The BP86D/TZP results revealed that the computed covalent contribution to the metal–metal bond are 60.5%, 54.1% and 52.0% for Mn–Mn, Re–Re and Tc–Tc, respectively. The computed total interaction energies resulting from attractive terms (Δ E orb and Δ E eles ), correspond well to experimental predictions, based on bond lengths and energy interaction analysis for the studied complexes.