A Brief Survey of Reaction Types

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Five different types of reactions of coordination compounds substitution, dissociation, addition, redox or electron transfer, and the reaction of a coordinated ligand. 

The tendency of such substitution reactions to take place is often tabulated in terms of stepwise and overall equilibrium constants. For example, the reaction of the tetraaquacopper(II) ion with ammonia in aqueous solution, shown in Equation (5.1), can be broken down into the stepwise replacement of one water ligand at a time as given in Equations (5.4) to (5.7)  

As we have seen in Chapter 3 on the structures of coordination compounds, there are many more examples of heteroleptic complexes than homoleptic. These, too, undergo substitution reactions. Equations (5.9) and (5.10) show two common examples. The first, the reaction of a complex with water is an aquation reaction, the second, the reaction with an anion is an anation reaction. 

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