A heuristic proposal is made in this communication that involves potentially unusual chemical bonding between the 3d transition series element Ni and the 3d transition series metals preceding it in the Periodic Table. The bonding in such mixed metal dimers, and their potential realizations as some simple three-dimensional (3D) extended structures in a one-to-one stoichiometry, as sphaelerite, rocksalt or CsCl structure-types, is proposed to include two principal components that involve either covalent or ionic contributions. Ordinary covalent contributions from a σ bond (or band) formed from overlap of singly occupied 4s atomic orbitals on each metal center are proposed to be operative in these molecules (or their extended realizations). However, in addition to this 4s–4s σ bond (band), an unprecedented transfer of a d electron from the incomplete, open 3d9 subshell of the transition metal involved in the bonding that precedes Ni in the Periodic Table, into the 3d9 subshell on the Ni center, which results in completion of this 3d subshell in Ni , is here implicated as a further driving force for the formation of these species. The resulting molecular and extended structures MNi , where M is a 3d transition metal preceding Ni in the Periodic Table (i.e. M = Sc , Ti , V , Cr , Mn , Fe and Co ), are therefore proposed to be bonded together by a combination of covalent and ionic forces, such that the Ni center acts as an anion of charge 1-, a so-called nickelide anion Ni -, while its counterpart is a univalent cation M +. This proposal is consistent with commonly employed electronegativity scales of chemical bonding, and with considerations of the relative orbital energies of the 3d subshells of the elements across the 3d transition series period, as well as with known trends in covalent and ionic bonding in the Periodic Table of the elements. It is also found to be in agreement with the spin multiplicities calculated in the nickel dimers MNi ( M = Sc , Ti , V , Cr , Mn , Fe and Co ) if Hund's rule is assumed to be operative.
The role of radial nodes of atomic orbitals for chemical bonding and the periodic table
