Distorted centre

The higher solubility of carbon in y-iron than in a-iroii is because the face-ceiiued lattice can accommodate carbon atoms in slightly expanded octahedral holes, but the body-centred lattice can only accommodate a much smaller carbon concentration in specially located, distorted tetrahedral holes. It follows that the formation of fenite together with cementite by eutectoid composition of austenite, leads to an increase in volume of the metal with accompanying compressive stresses at die interface between these two phases. 

Too fast a cooling rate with thick sections leads at an early stage to the formation of a solid shell with a soft centre. On further cooling the polymer tends either to shrink away from the centre towards the solid shell, resulting in the production of voids, or alternatively the shell tends to collapse with distortion of the product. 

A further source of stress may arise from incorrect mould design. For example, if the ejector pins are designed in such a way to cause distortion of the mouldings, internal stresses may develop. This will happen if the mould is distorted while the centre is still molten, but cooling, since some molecules will freeze in the distorted position. On recovery by the moulding of its natural shape these molecules will be under stress. 

The ternary Ge halides, MGeX3 (M = Rb, Cs X = Cl, Br, I) are polymorphic with various distorted perovskite-like (p. 963) structures which reflect the influence of the nonbonding pair of electrons on the Ge" centre. Thus, at room temperature, rhombohedral CsGel3 has three Ge-I at 275 pm and three at 327 pm whereas in the high-temperature cubic form (above 277°C) there are six Ge-I distances at 320 pm as a result of position changes of the Ge atoms (reversible order-disorder transition). Again, RbGel3 has a lemon-yellow, orthorhombic form below —92° an intermediate, bordeaux-red orthorhombic perovskite form (—92° to —52°) a black rhombohedral form (—52° to —29°) and... 

Finally, many disulfides have a quite different structure motif, being composed of infinite three-dimensional networks of M and discrete Sj units. The predominate structural types are pyrites, FeSa (also for M = Mn, Co, Ni, Ru, Os), and marcasite (known only for FeS2 among the disulfides). Pyrites can be described as a distorted NaCl-type structure in which the rodshaped S2 units (S-S 217 pm) are centred on the Cl positions but are oriented so that they are inclined away from the cubic axes. The marcasite structure is a variant of the rutile structure (Ti02,... 

The other tetrahalides can all readily be made by direct reactions of the elements. Crystalline SeCU, TeCU and -SeBr4 are isotypic and the structural unit is a cubane-like tetramer of the same general type as [Me3Pt(/Z3-Cl)]4 (p. 1168). This is illustrated schematically for TeCU in Fig. 16.13d each Te is displaced outwards along a threefold axis and thus has a distorted octahedral environment. This can be visualized as resulting from repulsions due to the Te lone-pairs directed towards the cube centre and, in the limit, would result in the separation into... 

Apart from type 62, which is only slowly convergent to the optimised geometry, the other centres are well described by the ROHF method. Polyhedral views of the three type a structures are shown in Fig. 6. These all illustrate the change of hybridisation at the point of muonium attachment and at the adjacent carbon atom where the unpaired electron is effectively localised as expected from addition to an alkene. The bi and c defects (Fig. 7) are quite different. The expected hybridisation change to sp is clearly present for the atom bonded to muonium, but other significant distortions are not obvious. This is consistent with the prediction from resonance theory (Fig. 8) that the unpaired electron for these structures is delocalised over a large number of centres. 

Slovokhotov, Yu.L. and Struchkov, Yu.T (1984) X-ray crystal structure of a distorted tetrahedral cluster in the salt [(Ph P)4Au4N] BF4 . Geometrical indication of stable electronic configurations in post-transition metal complexes and the magic number 18-e in centred gold clusters. Journal of Organometallic Chemistry, 177, 143-146. 

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