I was wondering what a "normal" bond length might be for a thiol to iron or cobalt might be, and then what might happen to that bond length might do if that bond was oxidized once and then twice. The best way to do this is to look at the small molecule crystallographic data so I got my friend
Ross to comb through the usual database to find examples of the various bonding motifs.
It turns out that there are no examples of 1b in the CCD, and precious few of 1c (only 4), 2b (only 5) and 2c (a more respectable 15). There are loads of examples of 1d (actually 286) and 2d (102).
Anyway, there isnt much of a difference in average bond lengths between these types: 1c- 2.221 angstroms, 1d- 2.276 angstroms, 2b- 2.225 angstroms, 2c- 2.208 angstroms and 2d- 2.252 angstroms.
Here are a few histograms showing the distributions that lie behind these means.
