Beryllium, chemistry

The combination of toxic hazard and high price (itself in part due to the extra measures needed in production processes to ensure the workers safety) has been an effective brake on commercial development of beryllium chemistry. Where possible substitute, albeit less effective, materials are often used titanium as an alternate lightweight metal or carbon fiber composites, phosphor-bronzes in place of beryllium alloys, aluminum nitride in place of BeO (1). 

This review is timely because of the likely increase in the use of beryllium compounds in the coming years. There is therefore a need for improved knowledge of beryllium chemistry, especially in relation to aqueous solutions. There is little doubt that fear has played a part in the relative underdevelopment of beryllium chemistry now that the hazards are better understood it should be possible to make good progress. 

Reviews and Data Compilations Relating to Beryllium Chemistry... 

Beryllium chemistry includes its S-diketonate complexes formed from dimedone (9), acetylacetone and some other S-diketones such as a,a,a-trifluoroacetylacetone. However, unlike the monomeric chelate products from acetylacetone and its fluorinated derivative, the enolate species of dimedone (9) cannot form chelates and as the complex is polymeric, it cannot be distilled and is more labile to hydrolysis, as might be expected for an unstabilized alkoxide. However, dimedone has a gas phase deprotonation enthalpy of 1418 9 kJmoD while acetylacetone enol (the more stable tautomer) is somewhat less acidic with a deprotonation enthalpy of 1438 10 klmoD Accordingly, had beryllium acetylacetonate not been a chelate, this species would have been more, not less, susceptible to hydrolysis. There is a formal similarity (roughly 7r-isoelectronic structures) between cyclic S-diketonates and complexes of dimedone with benzene and poly acetylene (10). The difference between the enthalpies of formation of these hydrocarbons is ca... 

K.A. Walsh (2009) Beryllium Chemistry and Processsing, ASM International, Ohio A book that details sources, production, chemistry and metallurgy of beryllium. 

Boys S F 1950 Eleetronie wave funetions II. A ealeulation for the ground state of the beryllium atom Proc. R. See. A 201 125-37 Shavitt I 1977 The method of eonfiguration interaetion Modern Theoretical Chemistry vo 3, ed H F III Sehaefer (New York Plenum) pp 189-275... 

J. Schubert, Beryllium and berylliosis. Chap. 34 (1958), in Chemistry in the Environment, pp. 321-7, Readings from Scientific American, W. H. Freeman, San Francisco, 1973. 

D. A. Everest, Beryllium, Comprehensive Inorganic Chemistry Vol, 1, pp. 531-90 Pei amon Press, Oxford (1973). 

Although modern chemistry allows development of even more effective rocket propellants, energy efficiency is not the only consideration factor. For example, fluorine and its derivatives arc better oxidizers than oxygen, but their extreme toxicity make them environmentally dangerous. The same concerns prevent the use of beryllium hydride—an excellent fuel that combines high density with the energy efficiency comparable to liquid hydrogen. 

Beryl. 385 Beryllium atomic size, 379 boiling point, 374 bonding capacity, 285 chemistry of, 382 electron configuration. 378 heat of vaporization, 374 ionization energies, 379 occurrence, 384 preparation, 385 properties, 381 structure, 381... 

Chemistry of beryllium-m-oxoacetato complexes. A. I. Grigoriev and V. A. Sipachev, Inorg. Chim. Acta, 1976,16, 269-279 (55). 

Everest, D. A. (1964). The Chemistry of Beryllium. Elsevier, Amsterdam. A general survey ofthe chemistry, properties, and uses of beryllium. 

In addition to magnesium, there is an extensive chemistry of organoberyllium compounds. The alkyl compounds are obtained most conveniently by the reaction of beryllium chloride with a Grignard reagent. 

Beside four-coordinate Be2+ structures, a couple of five-coordinate structures are known, e.g., Dehnicke s [BeCl(12-crown-4)]+ (179). The combination of beryllium cations and different crown ethers is of particular interest, not only because the Nobel Prize was awarded in part for the development of crown ethers (15), but also because crown ethers are common building blocks in all kinds of chemistry (180,181), with a wide range of applications. Since Be2+ is the smallest metal ion, the binding modes of Be2+ and crown ethers can lead to unexpected structural motifs. 

Aqueous Solution Chemistry of Beryllium Lucia Alderighi, Peter Gans, Stefano Midollini, and Alberto Vacca... 

What makes beryllium so special is the fact that in aqueous solution its cation, Be2+, is the only cation that is both habitually 4-coordinate and forms a range of complexes with simple ligands. This means that an understanding of the chemistry of this cation should... 

The literature relating to the aqueous solution chemistry of beryllium has been covered to the end of 1998. Previous reviews and relevant compilations of data are listed in Table I. The scope of this review will be to consider all the published data, with a particular emphasis on quantitative aspects, with the aim of facilitating a general discussion. A brief section relating to health and safety issues will be found at the end. 

Mederos, A. et al. Recent aspects of the coordination chemistry of the very toxic cation beryllium(II) The search for sequestering agents 22... 

Halides other than fluoride form very weak complexes in aqueous solution there are no reliable equilibrium constants to be found in the literature. The solution chemistry of aqueous solutions of beryllium chloride, bromide, and iodide have been reviewed previously (9). Some evidence for the formation of thiocyanate complexes was obtained in solvent extraction studies (134). 

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