CHEMICAL BONDING IN METAL-ORGANIC SYSTEMS: NATURE, STRUCTURES AND PROPERTIES

The main purpose of my thesis is the application of theoretical and experimental methods for the study of the nature of the chemical bond and its effect on structures and properties in organome-tallic systems, like Metal Carbonyl Clusters and Coordination Polymers (CPs) featuring, in some of the cases under study, intrinsic porosity (in the following, PCP for Porous Coordination Polymers or MOFs for Metal-Organic Frameworks). Concerning metal clusters, we worked on high nuclearity metal carbonyl clusters, and, particularly, on those featuring semi-interstitial atoms. The chemical bonding and the related properties in these peculiar class of molecules are still a matter of discussion in the scientific community. Concerning the class of Metal-organic Frameworks, we focused our attention on azolate-based ligands as building blocks for the synthesis of MOFs, looking at their possible future application as ultra-low dielectric constant materials in electronic devices. Finally, we investigated the structural behavior of Coordination Polymers at non-ambient condition (high pressure, in the order of 0-8 GPa), to induce new interactions and attitudes like electric conductivity. This research required the application of a bunch of theoretical tools, assisted by accurate single crystal X-ray diffraction experiments in standard and not-standard conditions (low temperature and high pressure). Moreover, a protocol for comparing different energy decomposition methods was developed and successfully applied to investigate the bonding nature in simple and complex systems.