Structure and Bonding in Organometallic Compounds: Organometallic Thermochemistry

This chapter provides an overview of the thermochemistry of organometallic compounds. A short introduction, stressing some of the questions that fostered the development in this field, is followed by sections on kinetic versus thermodynamic stability, on the several definitions of bond strengths, and on the main experimental methods that have been used to probe the energetics of organometallic compounds. The chapter is concluded by discussing the thermochemistry of a number of key elementary reactions (illustrating the application of data to the understanding of chemical processes) and by a brief section where a selection of thermochemical databases is presented.