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Topic: can a coordination bond undergo a non-homolytic cleavage?  (Read 2515 times)

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Offline iScience

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can a coordination bond undergo a non-homolytic cleavage?
« on: July 09, 2013, 03:54:33 PM »
can a nonhomolytic cleavage also be referred to as a heterolytic cleavage or is that improper?

Offline Illuminatus

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Re: can a coordination bond undergo a non-homolytic cleavage?
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2013, 05:39:18 PM »
Hello iScience,

When it comes to breaking covalent bonds long as the type of cleavage involves all electrons in the bond moving to one atom, it may be called a heterolytic cleavage. If a cleavage involves a splitting of the electrons in the bond, such as the creation of radicals, then the cleavage is considered homolytic. These definitions are very black and white, I cannot think of any exceptions to bond cleavage/fission.

Therefore, if a type of cleavage/fission in a covalent (coordination) bond is non-homolytic, then it is most certainly heterolytic... that is unless you know of a form of bond cleavage in which a third party strips the electrons from both bond donors prior to breaking them apart from each other first.

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Offline iScience

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Re: can a coordination bond undergo a non-homolytic cleavage?
« Reply #2 on: July 22, 2013, 08:07:42 PM »
i thought homolytic cleavage was the even/equal sharing of electrons with breaking a bond. if this is true, why would this lead to the creation of radicals? or were you referring to the question in the title? ie, "can a coordination bond undergo a non-homolytic cleavage?"

in breaking a coordination bond, where all of the electrons go to the species that originally donated all of the electrons, would this still be considered a non-homolytic/heterolytic cleavage?

Offline mjpam

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Re: can a coordination bond undergo a non-homolytic cleavage?
« Reply #3 on: July 29, 2013, 09:05:57 PM »
Each covalent bonds contains two electrons, so, when a covalent undergoes homolytic clevage, each fragment receives an electron from the former bond. In other words, the electrons from the former bond are shared equally among the fragments, leaving each fragment with an unpaired electron and therefore creating a radical.

As far as your question as to whether coordinate covalent bonds can undergo homolytic cleavage, I cannot think of a common example. I would imagine (but I have a active imagination) that there are some examples in organo-transition metal chemistry, because it may be possible to stabilize a ligand complex by performing a one-electron reduction on a multiple bond. However, this is pure speculation on my part.

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