American Chemical Society, The Journal of Physical Chemistry A, 1(118), p. 325-330, 2013
DOI: 10.1021/jp4113798
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The uranyl moiety, UO22+, is ubiquitous in the chemistry of uranium, the most prevalent actinide. Replacing the strong uranium-oxygen bonds in uranyl with other ligands is very challenging, having met with only limited success. We here report uranyl oxo bond activation in the gas phase to form a terminal nitrido complex, a previously elusive transformation. Collision induced dissociation of gas-phase UO2(NCO)Cl2- in an ion trap produced the nitrido oxo complex, NUOCl2-, and CO2. NUOCl2- was computed by DFT to have Cs symmetry and a singlet ground state. The computed bond length and order indicate a triple U-N bond. Endothermic activation of UO2(NCO)Cl2- to produce NUOCl2- and neutral CO2 was computed to be thermodynamically more favorable than NCO ligand loss. Complete reaction pathways for the CO2 elimination process were computed at the DFT level.