In an iterative process, first all terminal metal atoms (i.e. metal atoms that are connected to only one other atom) are checked and disconnected according to the lookup table of Figure based on electronegativity differences. This will ensure that, for example, all metal-metal bonds will be preserved. In a second step, metallic atoms bound to more than one ligand are examined. If the coordination number of such an atom is larger than a threshold value individually defined for each element, no bonds will be disconnected, while for low coordination numbers, a procedure similar to the one described above for terminal metals will decide on whether to keep or disconnect a bond based on differences in electronegativity. If only one metal-ligand bond is found to be kept, all others will also be retained and no disconnection carried out. For example, assuming a threshold value of two for iron, all bonds in [FeCl 4 ] 2-will be retained (see Figure ) while for FeCl 2 , when represented as Cl-Fe-Cl, the two metal-ligand bonds will be disconnected.