The transplutonium elements, e.g. the heavy actinides, are less well understood than the earlier members of the actinide series due to their extremely limited availability and high radioactivity. Organometallic complexes of these elements are particularly rare due to the need to accommodate radiological controls alongside air- and water-free synthetic techniques. The synthetic and analytical techniques that will work perfectly, first time, on sub-milligram scales also need to be rigorously optimized first on surrogate elements that are more abundant and less radioactive.<br/>The use of carbon-based aromatic cyclic ligands such as cyclopentadienyl, arene and cyclooctatetraenides in the formation of late-actinide complexes is of interest due to their potential to show significant covalent bonding interactions with the f-orbitals.<br/>The first crystallographically characterized americium and californium complexes containing An-C bonds were recently reported using cyclopentadienyl ligands. Here, we report the synthesis of new types of transplutonium organometallics for the heavy actinides and an in-depth investigation of their electronic structure and bonding.

Towards the synthesis of a transplutonium organometallic complex

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