Coordination numbers halides

The melting and boiling points of the aluminium halides, in contrast to the boron compounds, are irregular. It might reasonably be expected that aluminium, being a more metallic element than boron, would form an ionic fluoride and indeed the fact that it remains solid until 1564 K. when it sublimes, would tend to confirm this, although it should not be concluded that the fluoride is, therefore, wholly ionic. The crystal structure is such that each aluminium has a coordination number of six, being surrounded by six fluoride ions. 

All the other aluminium halides are covalently bonded with aluminium showing a coordination number of four towards these larger halogen atoms. The four halogen atoms arrange themselves approximately tetrahedrally around the aluminium and dimeric molecules are produced with the configuration given below ... 

No completely general and quantitative theory of the stereochemical activity of the lone-pair of electrons in complex halides of tervalent As, Sb and Bi has been developed but certain trends are discernible. The lone-pair becomes less decisive in modifying the stereochemistry (a) with increase in the coordination number of the central atom from 4 through 5 to 6, (b) with increase in the atomic weight of the central atom (As > Sb > Bi), and (c) with increa.se in the atomic weight of the halogen (F > Cl > Br > 1). The relative energies of the various valence-Ievel orbitals may also be an important factor the F(a) orbital of F lies well below both the s and the p valence... 

The telluride halides crystallize in monoclinic lattices, but only In-TeBr and InTel are isotypic 162). InTeCl forms a layer type of structure, as do InSCl and its analogs, but, owing to the size of the Te atom and the enhanced covalency of the In-Te bond, only a coordination number of 4 for indium is realized. The structure is built up of strongly distorted, InTesraCli/j tetrahedra that share the corners and edges occupied by Te atoms. The Cl atoms are coordinated to one tetrahedron each, and do not take part in the layer formation 324, 325). 

Group-IIIB halides ( 6.5.2), through interaction with neutral metal bases, lead to acid-base adducts in which the group-IIIB elements possess higher coordination numbers than before ( 6.5.2.1) ... 

The determination of the Concentrations in pyridine [N] which cause the coalescence of the signals of the diastereotopic groups of a 0.262 M solution methylneophyl-t-butyltin bromide (6) and of 0.332 M solution methylneophylphenyltin chloride (3) at 22 °C at respectively 60, 100 and 270 MHz shows12) that the k2 term is much smaller than the k3[N] term. From these results, it is clear that the inversion of the configuration of the metal atom of triorganotin halides is second-order in the nucleophile pyridine. An analogous rate equation has been found for the racemiza-tion of triorganosilicon halides 29), for which the activation entropy AS is about —50 e.u. Several mechanisms with increase of coordination number 30) can be proposed to account for this second order in the nucleophile 31) ... 

For halide ligands, a coordination number of four (/u4-X) is rare. Self-assembly of ds metal centers and halides around a pyramidal halide gives tetrapalladium complexes. In this unprecedented case the metallamacrocycle owes its formation to the halide acting as a template.347 The complexes (PPN)[Pd4(Fmes)4] (Fmes = 2,4,6-tris(trisfluoromethyl)phenyl) display fluxional behavior in solution in noncoordinating solvents.347... 

Although they are much more common than was at one time believed, molecules of the non-metallic elements with an LLP coordination number of greater than four are nevertheless relatively rare. They are very largely limited to the halides, particularly the fluorides, chlorides,... 

The most substantial study of this sort, analysing structures of 186 four-, five- and six-coordinated tin compounds, was published by Britton and Dunitz (1981) under the memorable title Pathways for SN2 and SN3 Substitution at Sn(IV) . Organotin halides readily increase their coordination number to 5 or 6 (Davies and Smith, 1982), and a wide range of structures are stable in the solid state. 

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