Osmium tetrafluoride

Osmium Tetrafluoride, OsF4, is obtained by passing fluorine over osmium at 280° C., the osmium having been reduced from the dioxide at red heat and rendered thereby less reactive. The small quantities of the higher fluorides simultaneously formed are removed by heating the tube, in which fluorination has been effected, to 100° C. in an atmosphere of nitrogen under low pressure. 

E. G. Hope, W. Levason, and J. S. Ogden, J. Chem, Soc., Dalton Trans., 61 (1988). Spectroscopic Studies on Matrix Isolated Osmium Pentafluoride Oxide, Osmium Tetrafluoride Oxide, and Osmium Difluoride Trioxide. 

Manganese trichloride oxide, 4141 Manganese trifluoride, 4335 Mercury(II) bromide, 0269 Mercury(I) fluoride, 4312 Mercury(II) iodide, 4602 Molybdenum hexafluoride, 4365 Molybdenum pentachloride, 4180 Neptunium hexafluoride, 4366 Osmium hexafluoride, 4370 Palladium tetrafluoride, 4347 Palladium trifluoride, 4341... 

Sir Humphry Davy attempted to isolate this unidentified element through electrolysis—but failed. It was not until 1824 that Jons Jakob Berzehus (1779—1848), who had earlier discovered cerium, osmium, and iridium, became the first person to separate the element silicon from its compound molecule and then identify it as a new element. Berzehus did this by a two-step process that basically involved heating potassium metal chips with a form of silica (SiF = silicon tetrafluoride) and then separating the resulting mixture of potassium fluoride and silica (SiF + 4K —> 4KF + Si). Today, commercial production of sihcon features a chemical reaction (reduction) between sand (SiO ) and carbon at temperatures over 2,200°C (SiO + 2C + heat— 2CO + Si). 

Osmium hexafluoride, 4364 Palladium tetrafluoride, 4341 Palladium trifluoride, 4335... 

It has been suggested (79) that polymorphism may occur for transition metal pentafluorides as it does for oxide tetrafluorides (91). X-Ray powder photographs of products from the reduction of hexafluorides in anhydrous hydrogen fluoride (79) showed that the samples of rhenium and osmium pentafluorides had different structures from those previously reported, but no unit-cell dimensions could be derived. 

The only known fluorine containing compounds of octa-valent osmium are osmium trioxide difluoride, OsOgF, and its salts. Osmium dioxide tetrafluoride, OsOjFg, and osmium oxide hexafluoride, OsOFg, are unknown. 

The 1 1 chlorine trifluoride-platinum pentafluoride adduct, m. p. I7l , and the 1 1 iodine pentafluoride adduct, m. p. 140° resemble, in their physical properties, the selenium tetrafluoride adducts of osmium pentafluoride (SeF4,OsFg, m. p. 158°) and iridium pentafluoride (SeF. IrFg, m. p. 133°). They are probably bifluorine-bridged monomers ... 

Although a number of complex fluorides of quinquevalent iridium, (e.g. KIrF,) are known, previous attempts to establish the simple fluoride have failed. The absence of a pentafluoride of iridium has become increasingly anomalous as the pentafluorides of the neighbouring elements, rhenium, osmium, and platinum have been prepared. Previous work - indicated that reactions which might have yielded the pentafluoride gave the tetrafluoride instead. The physical properties of this tetrafluoride. (m.p. 106—107 b.p. > 300 ), however, resembled those of a pentafluoride or oxide tetrafluoride. This indicated that iridium tetrafluoride differed structurally from its neighbouring tetrafluorides. 

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