In a recent Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) communication, two members of the Gagliardi group, graduate student Chad Hoyer and post-doctorate Giovanni Li Manni, computationally characterized an unprecedented two-coordinate, high-spin Mn(0) complex.

The work was in collaboration with Professor Cameron Jones of Monash University and Professor Keith Murray of Cardiff University. The molecule has been experimentally shown to behave as an “inorganic Grignard reagent” in the preparation of the first two-coordinate Mn(I) dimer and a heterobimetallic Mn(II)-Cr(0) complex.