Instruction
Molecular metal-metal bonding is a widely studied cornerstone of chemistry, and over the majority of two centuries it has become a mature field. However, in almost the entire history of metal-metal bonding isolable actinide-actinide bonding remained elusive under regular experimental conditions, with examples restricted to microscopic cryogenic inert matrices, gas-phase spectroscopic transients, or endohedral fullerene-encapsulated species.
Recently, we discovered that actinide-actinide bonding can be accessed in a trithorium cluster (a, b) [1]. This work has now developed to include 3c1e clusters[2], leading to the discovery that all these Th3 clusters exhibit exalted diamagnetism[3] which is an experimentally observable consequence of aromaticity. Quantum-crystallography has enabled experimental visualisation of the thorium-thorium bonding[4]. These works lead to the recognition that these 3c1e and 3c2e clusters are superalkalis and superalkalines, respectively, and hence open- and closed-shell Jellium aromats.
References
[1] J. T. Boronski, J. A. Seed, D. Hunger, A. W. Woodward, J. van Slageren, A. J. Wooles, L. S. Natrajan, N. Kaltsoyannis, S. T. Liddle, Nature. 2021, 598, 72.
[2] J. A. Seed, X. Deng, J. Tomeček, A. Brookfield, D. Collison, F. Tuna, A. J. Wooles, G. F. S. Whitehead, N. Kaltsoyannis, S. T. Liddle, Nat. Chem. 2025, 17, 1035-1041.
[3] X. Deng, J. A. Seed, J. Tomeček, A. Brookfield, F. Tuna, B. L. L. Réant, A. J. Wooles, N. Kaltsoyannis, S. T. Liddle, Nat. Commun.2026 DOI:10.1038/s41467-026-74403-3.
[4] F. Meurer, X. Deng, J. A. Seed, A. J. Wooles, J. Tomeček, N. Kaltsoyannis, A. Brookfield, F. Tuna, M. Bodensteiner, S. T. Liddle, Chem.2026, DOI:10.1016/j.chempr.2026.103107.
Biography
Steve Liddle is Professor and Head of Inorganic Chemistry, co-Director of the Centre for Radiochemistry Research, and Director of the National Nuclear User Facility at the Centre for Radiochemistry Research at The University of Manchester. He was born in Sunderland in the North East of England and obtained his BSc (Hons) in 1997 and PhD (Prof. W. Clegg) in 2000 from Newcastle University. After postdoctoral fellowships at Edinburgh University (Dr P. Bailey), Newcastle University (Dr K. Izod) as the Wilfred Hall Research Fellow, and Nottingham University (Prof. P. Arnold) he was appointed to a fixed-term Lectureship at Nottingham University in 2007. He subsequently took up a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (2007-2015) with a proleptic Lectureship, and he was promoted to Associate Professor and Reader in 2010 and Professor of Inorganic Chemistry in 2013. He moved to The University of Manchester in 2015.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2011), Vice President to the Executive Committee of the European Rare Earth and Actinide Society (ERES, 2012-now), ERES President-Elect (2024-2026), ERES President (2026-now), Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2022), Member of Academia Europaea (2025), Member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts (2025), and Member of the European Academy of Sciences (2026). He was Chairman of COST Action CM1006, a 22 country 120 research group network for f-block chemistry (2011-2015), and he is a National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement Ambassador and advisor to the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission. He was one of the Periodic Videos team awarded the IChemE Petronas award for excellence in education and training in 2008. He was awarded the RSC Sir Edward Frankland Fellowship and the RSC Radiochemistry Group Bill Newton Awards in 2011, a Rising Star Award at the 41st International Conference on Coordination Chemistry in 2014, the RSC Corday-Morgan prize in 2015, an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Award in 2019, and the RSC Tilden Prize in 2020. In 2021 he was one of the team awarded an inaugural RSC Dalton Division Horizon Prize and was awarded the GDCh/RSC Alexander Todd Hans Krebs Lectureship prize in 2023. In 2025 he was awarded the Terrae Rarae Award of the Tage der Seltenen Erden. He was awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starter Grant in 2009, a ERC Consolidator Grant in 2014, and he held an EPSRC Established Career Fellowship (2015-2021). He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Regensburg and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. He has >260 publications.
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