Technetium Dichloride: A New Binary Halide Containing Metal–Metal Multiple Bonds

Technetium dichloride has been discovered. It was synthesized from the elements and characterized by several physical techniques, including single crystal X-ray diffraction. In the solid state, technetium dichloride exhibits a new structure type consisting of infinite chains of face sharing [Tc2Cl8] rectangular prisms that are packed in a commensurate supercell. The metal–metal separation in the prisms is 2.127(2) Å, a distance consistent with the presence of a TcTc triple bond that is also supported by electronic structure calculations.