Issue 33/2015 - Chinese scientists successfully prepared the first all-metal sandwich compound

It was learned from the Chinese Academy of Sciences that Sun Zhongming's research group of Sun Zhongming, State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, worked around the synthesis of all-metal aromatic cluster compounds, and successfully prepared the first all-metal "sandwich compound"
.

The successful preparation of this compound points out a new way to synthesize other all-metal sandwich compounds, and the researchers next try to introduce rare earth elements into the system, hoping to obtain more novel structural types of all-metal sandwich structural compounds
.

A sandwich compound is a "sandwich" compound
formed from metal atoms and two cyclopolyenes.
Ferrocene is the first organic transition metal sandwich compound with aromatic properties synthesized in the 1950s, and its discovery has opened a new curtain for organometallic chemistry, which has been widely used
in catalysis, organic synthesis, new materials and other fields.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, two milestones have been made in the field of sandwich compound research: first, American scientists have synthesized a new "carbon-free" sandwich compound; Second, Japanese scientists have further extended single-atom metal sandwiches to polyatomic metal layers
.
However, for more than 60 years, there has been no breakthrough
in the synthesis of all-metal aromatic sandwich compounds.

After the relevant paper of the Chinese Academy of Sciences was published, Alexander Boldyrev, the founder of the all-metal aromaticity theory, an internationally renowned theoretical chemist and professor at Utah State University in the United States, immediately wrote to him: "This research result is a very important contribution
in the field of metal aromatic and coordination chemistry.
(
Letter)