Vibrational Control of Covalency Effects Related to the Active Sites of Molybdenum Enzymes

October 11, 2018

Title

Vibrational Control of Covalency Effects Related to the Active Sites of Molybdenum Enzymes

Author

Benjamin W. Stein, Jing Yang, Regina Mtei, Nicholas J. Wiebelhaus, Dominic K. Kersi, Jesse LePluart, Dennis L. Lichtenberger, John H. Enemark, Martin L. Kirk

Year

2018

Journal

JACS

Abstract

ABSTRACT: A multi-technique spectroscopic and theoretical study of the Cp2M(benzenedithiolato) (M=Ti,V,Mo; Cp = η5-C5H5) series provides deep insight into dithiolene electronic structure contributions to electron transfer reactivity and reduction potential modulation in pyranopterin molybdenum enzymes. This work explains the magnitude of the dithiolene folding distortion, and the concomitant changes in met-al-ligand covalency, that are sensitive to electronic structure changes as a function of d-electron occupancy in the redox orbital. It is shown that the large fold angle differences correlate with covalency, and the fold angle distortion is due to a pseudo-Jahn-Teller (PJT) effect. The PJT effect in these and related transition metal dithiolene systems arise from the small energy differences between metal and sulfur valence molecu-lar orbitals, which uniquely poise these systems for dramatic geometric and electronic structure changes as the oxidation state changes. Herein, we have used a combination of resonance Raman, magnetic circular dichroism, electron paramagnetic resonance, and UV photoelectron spectroscopies to explore the electronic states involved in the vibronic coupling mechanism. Comparison between the UV photoelectron spectros-copy (UPS) of the d2 M=Mo complex and the resonance Raman spectra of the d1 M=V complex reveals the power of this combined spectroscopic approach. Here, we observe that the UPS spectrum of Cp2Mo(bdt) contains an intriguing vibronic progession that is dominated by a “missing-mode” that is comprised of PJT active distortions. We discuss the relationship of the PJT distortions to facile electron transfer in molybdenum enzymes.

Instrument

J-810

Keywords

Circular dichroism, Magnetic circular dichroism, Coordination chemistry, Inorganic chemistry