POLYDENTATE LIGANDS

[Lesley Perez 1F]

Hi,

When a ligand is polydentate, are metals able to bind to the same atom twice? Because I know that there are atoms that have more than one lone pair so would it be able to bind to more than one metal at once?

[Nicole Coulter]

I am unsure if this is a possibility, I think it is beyond the scope of the class, but normally polydentate ligands just have multiple O or N's with a lone pair that the transition metal binds to. (for example edta, ox) etc. look at the compound naming sheet on class website and on edta it shows the lone pairs on N and O (that is where the multiple binding sites are)