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Organometallic Chemistry (Evans)

  • Page ID
    700
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    Organometallic (OM) chemistry is the study of compounds containing, and reactions involving, metal-carbon bonds. The metal-carbon bond may be transient or temporary, but if one exists during a reaction or in a compound of interest, we’re squarely in the domain of organometallic chemistry. Despite the denotational importance of the M-C bond, bonds between metals and the other common elements of organic chemistry also appear in OM chemistry: metal-nitrogen, metal-oxygen, metal-halogen, and even metal-hydrogen bonds all play a role. Metals cover a vast swath of the periodic table and include the alkali metals (group 1), alkali earth metals (group 2), transition metals (groups 3-12), the main group metals (groups 13-15, “under the stairs”), and the lanthanides and actinides. We will focus most prominently on the behavior of the transition metals, so called because they cover the transition between the electropositive group 2 elements and the more electron-rich main group elements.

    Thumbnail: Bis(benzene)chromium. (Public Domain; Ben Mills via Wikipedia)


    This page titled Organometallic Chemistry (Evans) is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Michael Evans.