Beryllium covalent radius

It is noteworthy that the Be—O distance (1.60 A) is of the same order as that found for other coordination compounds of beryllium and leads to the value of 1.0—1.1 A for the covalent radius of beryllium in this type of coordination.26 Clearly arguments based on relative ionic radii are invalid. Thus the dihydrate of zinc oxinate has been shown to form a distorted tetrahedron with two long Zn—H20 bonds while the lengths Zn—O and Zn—N to the ligand are 2.05 and 2.06 A respectively, whence the zinc radius is 1.38 A. Clearly the use of an ionic radius (Zn2+ = 0.74 A) would be misleading. Similarly the Cu—N bond in compounds of Cu11 with ammonia and ethylenediamine (1.99,2.05,2.01 A) implies a radius of 1.3-1.4 A in these coordination compounds, a value considerably larger than the ionic radius of 0.7 A.23... 

All group 2 elements are metals, but an abrupt change in properties between Be and Mg occurs as Be shows anomalous behavior in forming mainly covalent compounds. Beryllium most frequently displays a coordination number of four, usually tetrahedral, in which the radius of Be2+ is 27 pm. The chemical behavior of magnesium is intermediate between that of Be and the heavier elements, and it also has some tendency for covalent bond formation. 

Some pertinent data for the elements are given in Table 4-1. Beryllium has unique chemical behavior with a predominantly covalent chemistry, although it forms an aqua ion [Be(H20)4]2+. Magnesium has a chemistry intermediate between that of Be and the heavier elements, but it does not stand in as close relationship with the predominantly ionic heavier members as might have been expected from the similarity of Na, K, Rb, and Cs. It has considerable tendency to covalent bond formation, consistent with the high charge/radius ratio. For instance, like beryllium, its hydroxide can be precipitated from aqueous solutions, whereas hydroxides of the other elements are all moderately soluble, and it readily forms bonds to carbon. 

Beryllium oxide is covalent and has a zinc blende (wurtzite) structure, but all the others are ionic and have a rock salt structure (Figure 3). Attempts to predict the structures (using the ionic sizes and the radius ratio) only are partly successfijl. 

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