During the systematic research into the composition, the structure, and the properties of metal tetrafluoroborate complexes with nitrogen-containing organic bases (NOB), it has been found previously [1,2] that an increase in the electron-donor capacity of the organic base is accompanied by a decrease in the number of its molecules involved in the coordination. In the case of highly basic compounds such as morpholine (Mr), benzylamine (BA), tert -butylamine ( t -BA), and piperidine (PP), mixed-ligand complexes [ å( L ) 2 ( BF 4 ) 2 ] are formed. The elucidated dependence is interpreted from the standpoint of Pearson's Hard-and-Soft Acid-Base Principle [2].Since this interpretation is qualitative, a quantitative estimate of the hard/soft characteristics of the complexes [3] was carried out by the Jolly-Perry method based on equalization of the orbital electronegativities and implemented as the ELSA software [4]. This program has now been modified for Windows. In addition, it stipulates the calculation of a number of additional parameters such as the electrophilicity or the nucleophilicity of atoms. By using this program, certain correlations were established between the electron-donor ability (basicity) of the initial organic ligands and the hard/soft characteristics [3] such as equalized electronegativity, the polarity, and the hardness/softness ( h ) of the coordination bond calculated for tetrafluoroborate complexes.However, the study cited did not answer the question why in the case of highly basic organic ligands (Mr, BA, t -BA, PP), hard ligands are also coordinated to the central atom in addition to the NOB, instead of the formation of a uniform inner sphere containing only the above-mentioned organic ligands, BF 4 -which are also hard ligands, although the formation of mixed-ligand complexes in this case is in line with known views on their advantages over complexes with identical ligands [5].To make a quantitative estimate and to interpret this fact, we calculated here the hardness/softness parameters for the coordination bond ( h M -N ), the central metal atom ( h M ), and the electron-donor nitrogen atom of the organic ligand ( h N ) for the whole range of tetrafluoroborate complexes both experimentally available and hypothetical in the case of probable stepwise complexation. For the same ligand present in the ML n ( BF 4 ) 2 complexes (M = Zn, Cd), the n value was varied from 1 to 6. The purpose of this study was to analyze the calculated η parameters as a measure of hardness in order to identify the most stable compounds of all hypothetically possible compounds including those obtained experimentally.The interpretation of the calculated data is based on the maximum hardness principle proposed by Pearson [6] according to which the system tends to acquire the maximum hardness, as this makes it most stable. This principle was based initially on experimental regularities and later it was mathematically substantiated in terms of the density functional theory [7][8][9].
EXPERIMENTALIn a previous study [3], w...