Coordinative bonding to carbon more nuanced than first thought

Research by an international group of scientists provides evidence of covalent, dative and ionic character in one bond. Somewhat unifying a long-running bonding debate on the nature of bonding in a class of molecules called carbones, previously described as purely dative, the work suggests bonding in carbones sits somewhere between electron sharing bonds and dative bonds. The researchers say this provides a new distinction between coordinative bonding to carbon in the molecules studied and the more traditional coordination chemistry of transition metals and their ligands, which form purely dative bonds.