Beryllium association with aluminum

Minerals belonging to the category of insoluble oxide and silicate minerals are many in number. Insoluble oxide minerals include those superficially oxidized and those of oxide type. The former category comprises mainly superficially oxidized sulfide minerals, including metals such as aluminum, tin, manganese, and iron which are won from their oxidic sources. As far as silicate minerals are concerned, there can be a ready reference to several metals such as beryllium, lithium, titanium, zirconium, and niobium which are known for their occurrence as (or are associated with) complex silicates in relatively low-grade deposits. 

A further point of interest is that in both the dimeric and trimeric species shown, the beryllium atom still has a vacant orbital available which may be used in adduct formation without disruption of the electron-deficient bond. This type of behavior leads to the formation of dimers with four-coordinate beryllium atoms, e.g., structure XX (86). This structure has been determined in the solid state and shows that the phenylethynyl-bridging group is tipped to the side, but to a much smaller extent than observed in the aluminum derivative (112). One cannot be certain whether the distortion in this case is associated with a it - metal interaction or is simply a result of steric crowding, crystal packing, or the formation of the coordination complexes. Certainly some differences must have occurred since both the Be—Be distance and Be—C—Be angle are substantially increased in this compound relative to those observed in the polymer chain. 

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