In 2021, our group reported the reaction of 25 with biphenylene. This was the first report of Both pathways are highly exergonic, consistent with the nonreversible formation of the products observed experimentally. A direct oxidative addition of the central C 1 -C 7 -bond of biphenylene to 25 was calculated to occur by a high activation barrier (G ‡ 298K = 42.0 kcal mol -1 ), likely to be inaccessible under the reaction conditions. Further calculations using activation strain analysis suggest that the inaccessible energy barriers for oxidative addition are likely a result of the strain required to achieve orbital overlap between the aluminium complex's lone pair and C 1 -C 7 *-orbital in biphenylene. In 2022, Braunschweig and co-workers reported an in situ generated base-stabilised aryl aluminylene complex capable of deconstructing benzene and toluene via C-C bond scission (Scheme 12). The In this regard, it is notable that many of the emerging applications of main group metals in C-C bond activation rely on low-oxidation state complexes with coordinated ligands (e.g. NHCs). The coordination event not only lowers the HOMO-LUMO gap it also changes the geometry at the main group metal centre.