Electronic structure and prediction of atomization energy of naked homoleptic uranium hexacarbonyl U(CO)6.
Our ab initio all-electron fully relativistic Dirac-Fock and nonrelativistic Hartree-Fock self-consistent field (SCF) calculations predict the octahedral (Oh) uranium hexacarbonyl U(CO)6 to be bound with the calculated atomization energy of 49.84 and 48.76 eV at the predicted U-C bond lengths (assuming the C-O bond distance fixed at 1.17 A) of 2.53 and 2.63 A, respectively. Moreover, our all-electron fully relativistic Dirac-Fock SCF calculations predict U(CO)6 to be lower in energy by 3.90 eV with respect to dissociation into U plus six CO ligands. We predict U(CO)6 (Oh) to be very stable in view of our predicted large atomization energy (approximately 49 eV) and stability (approximately 4 eV) with respect to dissociation into U plus six CO molecules. Innovative techniques should be devised for the synthesis of uranium hexacarbonyl since the usual synthetic methods have failed so far for this naked actinide hexacarbonyl.
Malli
Gulzari L
GL
Department of Chemistry, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6. malli@sfu.ca