Inorganic Electron Transfer: Sharpening a Fuzzy Border in Mixed Valency and Extending Mixed Valency across Supramolecular Systems

TLDR: The first experiments to observe and analyze the coalescence of ν(CO) band shapes in the 1D IR spectra of mixed-valence complexes of the type {[Ru3O(OAc)6(CO)(L)]2-BL}(-), to estimate rate constants of intramolecular electron transfer (ET).

Abstract: This article describes research from our laboratory on the chemistry and spectroscopic properties of inorganic mixed-valence complexes. After a brief review of the seminal work of Taube, Creutz, Day, Robin, Hush, and others in the 1960s and the confounding efforts to identify the borderline between class II and III mixed-valence systems in the 1990s and early 2000s, we describe our first experiments to observe and analyze the coalescence of ν(CO) band shapes in the 1D IR spectra of mixed-valence complexes of the type {[Ru3O(OAc)6(CO)(L)]2-BL}−, where L = a pyridyl ligand and BL = pyrazine or 4,4′-bipyridine, to estimate rate constants of intramolecular electron transfer (ET). The strong involvement of the bridging ligands in mixed-valence complexes of this type was first identified in the appearance of totally symmetric vibrational modes of pyrazine bridging ligands in the IR because of strong vibronic coupling within a three-state metal cluster–bridge–metal cluster model. Application of the Brunschwig–Cr...