Making Attachments - Coordination

The strong drive towards complexation of nominally naked metal ions is readily observed. For example if a simple hydrated salt like copper(II) sulfate (CuS04-5H20) is dried in a vacuum oven to the point where no attached water molecules are present, a colourless anhydrous salt Q1SO4 is obtained. If this is dissolved in water, a pale blue solution is 

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The effective area of the anionic aluminosilicate framework in the pores of a zeolite is at least 100 times the external surface area, and it can be as high as 1000 m2 g-1. Consequently zeolites are unusually effective as catalysts for reactions that are favored by aluminosilicate surfaces. Substitution of Sj4+ Al3+ in a silica framework makes it acidic and, potentially, coordinatively unsaturated. Suppose, for example, that we heat the NH4+ form of a zeolite. Ammonia is driven off, and one H+ remains to counterbalance each Al3+ that has substituted for a silicon. The protons are attached to oxygens of the aluminosilicate framework ... 

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