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(Invited) Molecular Structures and Unique Bindings of Actinide Endohedral Fullerenes

Wednesday, 16 May 2018: 08:20
Room 204 (Washington State Convention Center)
N. Chen (Soochow University), L. Echegoyen (The University of Texas at El Paso), L. Feng (Soochow University), Y. Wang (Soochow University, Suzhou, Jiangsu, (China)), and X. Zhang (Soochow University)
The successful isolation and characterization of Th@C82, U@C82, U@C74 have shown that actinide fullerenes have unique properties which are previously unknown to the endohedral fullerene world. Now, with the further exploration of actinide endohedral fullerenes based on U and Th, we found these endohedral fullerenes are unique for not only fullerene chemistry but also to actinide chemistry. U@C80 and U@C76 have been found to process Non-IPR cages, which are rare cases for the mono metallic endohedral fullerenes. Th@C86 and U@C86, on the other hand were found to share the same IPR cages, where have never been reported before. The crystallographic and computational studies of U2C@Ih-C80 reveal reveals a cage-stabilized, carbide-bridged, bent UCU cluster with unpreced­entedly short uranium-carbon distances (2.03 Å) of genuine U=C double-bond character. The isolation of U2C@C80 gives an unprecedented look into a long sought after but heretofore unknown U=C bond which lacks heteroatom support, allowing for detailed structural and electronic insights.