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The Frenking Group

After formal retirement in April 2014, I am still actively engaged in research with postdoctoral fellows and outside collaborators as professor emeritus at the Philipps University and, temporarily for several months each year, as Ikerbasque Visiting Research Professor at the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) at San Sebastian, Spain and as Visiting Research Professor at Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing (China). The focus of our research are dative bonding in main-group compounds and transition metal complexes, bonding analysis of molecules which possess unusual bonds and reaction mechanisms of small-molecule activation.

The following publications are representative examples of our work:

• “The Valence Orbitals of the Alkaline-Earth Atoms.”
  I. Fernandez, N. Holzmann, G. Frenking
  Chem. Eur. J. 26, 14194 (2020) online (DOI)


• “A Critical Look at Linus Pauling’s Influence on the Understanding of Chemical Bonding.”
  S. Pan, G. Frenking
  Molecules 26, 4695 (2021) online (DOI)
  


• (Review) “Transition-Metal Chemistry of the Heavier Alkaline Earth Atoms Ca, Sr, and Ba.”
  M. Zhou, G. Frenking
  Acc. Chem. Res. 54, 3071 (2021) online (DOI)
  


• “Dinitrogen complexation and reduction at low-valent calcium.”
  B. Rösch, T. X. Gentner, J. Langer, C. Färber, J. Eyselein, L. Zhao, C. Ding, G. Frenking, S. Harder
  Science 371, 1125 (2021) online (DOI)
  


• “The nature of the polar covalent bond.”
  L. Zhao, S. Pan, G. Frenking
  J. Chem. Phys. 157, 034105 (2022) online (DOI)
  


• “The strength of a chemical bond.”
  L. Zhao, M. Zhi, G. Frenking
  Int. J. Quantum Chem. 122, e26773 (2022) online (DOI)
  


• “The Chemical Bond – an Entrance Door of Chemistry to the Neighboring Sciences and to Philosophy.”
  G. Frenking
  Isr. J. Chem. 62, e202100070 (2022) online (DOI)
  


• “Genuine quadruple bonds between two main-group atoms. Chemical bonding in AeF⁻ (Ae = Be–Ba) and isoelectronic EF (E = B–Tl) and the particular role of d orbitals in covalent interactions of heavier alkaline-earth atoms.”
  R. Liu, L. Qin, Z. Zhang, L. Zhao, F. Sagan, M. Mitoraj, G. Frenking
  Chem. Sci. 14, 4872 (2023) online (DOI)
  


• “An isolable germylyne radical with a one-coordinate germanium atom.”
  D. Wang, C. Zhai, Y. Chen, Y. He, X.-D. Chen, S. Wang, L. Zhao, G. Frenking, X. Wang, G. Tan
  Nat. Chem. 15, 200 (2023) online (DOI)
  


• “Heretical thoughts about the present understanding and description of the chemical bond.”
  G. Frenking
  Molecular Physics TBD, e2110168 (2023) online (DOI)