An investigation of the aromaticity of transition metal heterocyclic complexes by conventional criteria and indices of aromaticity

Conventional criteria and indices of aromaticity, including electronic, geometric, energetic and magnetic aspects have been applied to examine the aromaticity of five typical transition metal heterocyclic complexes, i.e. six-membered osmabezene 1 and iridabenzene 2, five-membered cobaltacyclopentadiene 3 and iridacyclopentadiene 4, and four-membered tungstacyclobutadiene 5. The results show that the cyclic, planar, conjugated and Hückel 4n+2 rule’s criteria in the transition-metal-containing heterocycles of the five complexes studied are all met. Five quantitative aromaticity indices, including Bird aromatic index (I_n), homodesmotic reaction aromatic stabilization energy (HASE), absolute hardness (η), diamagnetic susceptibility exaltation (Λ) and NMR chemical shift (δH), qualitatively lead to a consistent and affirmative conclusion that all of them are aromatic. However, they fail to draw a common conclusion for their relative magnitudes of aromaticity, which proves once again the multidimensional character of aromaticity.