CHEMISTRY OF THE MAIN GROUP ELEMENTS

The 20 industrial chemicals produced in greatest amounts in the United States are main group elements or compounds (Table 8-1), and eight of the top ten may be classified as inorganic numerous other compounds of these elements are of great commercial importance. 

A discussion of main group chemistry provides a useful context in which to introduce a variety of topics not covered previously in this text. These topics may be particularly characteristic of main group chemistry but may be applicable to the chemistry of other elements as well. For example, many examples are known in which atoms form bridges between other atoms. Main group examples include 

In this chapter, we will discuss in some detail one important type of bridge, the hydrogens that form bridges between boron atoms in boranes. A similar approach can be used to describe bridges by other atoms and by groups such as CO (CO bridges between transition metal atoms will be discussed in Chapter 13). 

This chapter also provides examples in which modem chemistry has developed in ways surprisingly different from previously held ideas. Examples include compounds in which carbon is bonded to more than four atoms, the synthesis of alkali metal anions, and the now fairly extensive chemistry of noble gas elements. The past two decades have also seen the remarkable development of the fiillerenes, previously unknown clusters of carbon atoms. Much of the information in this chapter is included for the sake of handy reference for more details, the interested reader should consult the references listed at the end of this chapter. The bonding and stractures of main group compounds (Chapters 3 

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General surveys of advances in coordination chemistry appear in Annual Reports , The Royal Society of Chemistry, London, Section A. More specialized reports were published in the form of the Specialist Periodical Reports Inorganic Chemistry of the Transition Elements , The Chemical Society, London (Volumes 1-6), which reviewed the literature published between 1971 and 1976, and the Specialist Periodical Reports Inorganic Chemistry of the Main Group Elements , The Chemical Society, London (Volumes 1-5), which reviewed the literature published between 1971 and 1976. Both these series have now been discontinued. 

King, R. B. (1995). Inorganic Chemistry of the Main Group Elements. VCH Publishers, New York. An excellent introduction to the descriptive chemistry of many elements. Chapter 10 deals with the alkali and alkaline earth metals. 

Organometallic Chemistry of the Main Group Elements—A Guide to the Literature, 13, 453... 

In introductory chemistry courses, much emphasis is necessarily placed on the concept of stoichiometry, that is, the fact that elements combine in certain definite proportions by weight, proportions that reflect their valences and atomic masses. For much of the chemistry of the main group elements and organic compounds, this concept works extremely well, but in transition metal chemistry in particular it is common for ions of more than one oxidation state to form with comparable ease, and sometimes to occur together in the same ionic solid. The presence of more highly oxidized cations... 

King, R. B. (1995). Inorganic Chemistry of the Main Group Elements. New York VCH Publishers. 

The chemists who had taken part in the development of the organic chemistry of the Main Group elements over the past 75 years had tried to prepare similar organo-transition metal derivatives analogously. They... 

Gas Kineiica end Energy Transfer Inorganic Chemistry of the Main-group Elements... 

D. Astruc, M.-H. Delville, M. Lacoste, J. Ruiz, F. Moulines, J.-R. Hamon in Recent Advances in the Chemistry of the Main-Group Elements (Ed. N. Hosmane), Phosphorus, Sulfur, Silicon and the Related Elements, 1994, 87, 11. 

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