Inorganic main group elements

Other Inorganics. Inorganic species in solution have been studied very effectively by Raman spectroscopy. Work in this area includes the investigation of coordination compounds (qv) of fluorine (qv) (40), the characterization of low dimensional materials (41) and coordinated ligands (42), and single-crystal studies (43). Several compilations of characteristic vibrational frequencies of main-group elements have been pubflshed to aid in the identification of these species (44,45). 

The selenohalides and tellurohalides of both main-group elements and transition metals have been compared with the corresponding thiohalides in two extensive reviews.Other inorganic compounds of Se and Te, with bonds to N, P etc are described on pp. 783-6. 

E. H. Appelman, Astatine, Chap. 6 in MTP International Review of Science, Inorganic Chemistry, Series 1. Vol. 3, Main Group Elements Group VII and Noble Gases. pp. 181-98, Butterworths, London, 1972 see also ref. 23, pp. 1573-94, Astatine. 

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. 

Thio- and seleno-compounds of the main group elements — novel inorganic oligomers and polymers. B. Krebs, Angew. Chem., Int. Ed. Engl., 1983, 22,113-134 (252),... 

Rasmussen RL, Morse JG, Morse KW (2004) Main Group elements. In Meyers RA (ed.) Encyclopedia of Physical Science and Technology - Inorganic Chemistry. Elsevier Science, URL ... 

Gorling, A., Rosch, N., Ellis, D.E. and Schmidbaur, H. (1991) Electronic structure of main-group-element-centered octahedral gold clusters. Inorganic Chemistry, 30, 3986-3994. 

B. Krebs, Thio and seleno compounds of main group elements - new inorganic ohgomers and polymers. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 22 (1983) 113. 

Inorganic polymers based on alternating main group element-nitrogen skeletons (e.g. I - IV) are of interest for their potential as elastomers, high-temperature oils, electrical conductors, biological molecule carriers, and precursors to ceramic materials (J - 6). 

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. 

Cotton, F. A., Wilkinson, G., Murillo, C. A., and Bochmann, M. (1999). Advanced Inorganic Chemistry, 6th ed. Wiley, New York. This reference text contains a great deal of information on organometallic chemistry of main-group elements. 

The main group duster chemistry discussed in this book can be considered to originate from two important, but apparently unrelated developments in inorganic chemistry in the 1930s. The first was the identification of the neutral boron hydrides by Stock [1]. The second was the observation by Zintl and co-workers [2-5] of anionic clusters formed from potentiometric titrations of post-transition metals (i.e., heavy main group elements) with sodium in liquid ammonia. 

My purpose here is to Illustrate what can be accomplished with just one inorganic macromolecular system — in this case constructed from a backbone of phosphorus and nitrogen atoms. Almost certainly, other systems based on the Main Group elements can be developed to an equal or greater degree. I hope that the following comments will stimulate an increased interest in that direction. I will also attempt to illustrate the relationship between the fundamental chemistry and an approach to solving practical problems. 

Some fluorides of the main group elements, however, will be discussed here in so far as they represent important structure types. As for the general chemistry of inorganic fluorine compounds the reader is referred to a review by Simons 288) and, restricted to main group elements, to a very recent one by Kemmitt and Sharp (188). 

D. A. Armitage, Inorganic Rings and Chains, Edward Arnold, London, 1972. A. L. Rheingold (ed.), Homoatomic Rings Chains and Macromolecules of Main-group Elements, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1977. 

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