Chemical bonding and aromaticity in trinuclear transition-metal halide clusters

Trinuclear transition-metal complexes such as Re(3)X(9) (X = Cl, Br, I), with their uniquely featured structure among metal halides, have posed intriguing questions related to multicenter electron delocalization for several decades. Here we report a comprehensive study of the technetium halide clusters [Tc(3)(μ-X)(3)X(6)](0/1-/2-) (X = F, Cl, Br, I), isomorphous with their rhenium congeners, predicted from density functional theory calculations. The chemical bonding and aromaticity in these clusters are analyzed using the recently developed adaptive natural density partitioning method, which indicates that only [Tc(3)X(9)](2-) clusters exhibit aromatic character, stemming from a d-orbital-based π bond delocalized over the three metal centers. We also show that standard methods founded on the nucleus-independent chemical shift concept incorrectly predict the neutral Tc(3)X(9) clusters to be aromatic.