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Theoretical chemistry

The six-bond bound

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What is the maximum number of covalent chemical bonds that two atoms can share? Six, according to the latest theoretical study — at least where just two atoms of the same element are concerned.

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Figure 1: Six bonds that bind.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gernot Frenking and Ralf Tonner are in the Fachbereich Chemie, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Hans-Meerwein-Straße, D-35043 Marburg, Germany. frenking@chemie.uni-marburg.de,

    Gernot Frenking & Ralf Tonner

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  1. Gernot Frenking
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  2. Ralf Tonner
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Frenking, G., Tonner, R. The six-bond bound. Nature 446, 276–277 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/446276a

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