Exchange-enhanced reactivity in bond activation by metal-oxo enzymes and synthetic reagents

Reactivity principles based on orbital overlap and bonding/antibonding interactions are well established to describe the reactivity of organic species, and atomic structures are typically predicted by Hund's rules to have maximum single-electron occupancy of degenerate orbitals in the ground state. Here, we extend the role of exchange to transition states and discuss how, for reactions and kinetics of bioinorganic species, the analogue of Hund's rules is exchange-controlled reactivity. Pathways that increase the number of unpaired and spin-identical electrons on a metal centre will be favoured by exchange stabilization. Such exchange-enhanced reactivity endows transition states with a stereochemistry different from that observed in cases that are not exchange-enhanced, and is in good agreement with the reactivity observed for iron-based enzymes and synthetic analogues. We discuss the interplay between orbital- and exchange-controlled principles, and how this depends on the identity of the transition metal, its oxidation number and its coordination sphere.