Pyramids pentagonal

The a-rhombohedral form of boron has the simplest crystal stmcture with slightly deformed cubic close packing. At 1200°C a-rhombohedral boron degrades, and at 1500°C converts to P-rhombohedral boron, which is the most thermodynamically stable form. The unit cell has 104 boron atoms, a central B 2 icosahedron, and 12 pentagonal pyramids of boron atom directed outward. Twenty additional boron atoms complete a complex coordination (2). 

Table 4.3 indicates that octahedral coordination is a common mode for Li. Less usual is planar 6-fold coordination (Fig. 4.8a), pentagonal pyramidal coordination (Fig. 4.8i) or irregular 6-fold coordination (Fig. 4.9a). Examples of 7-fold coordination are in Fig. 4.9b and c. Lithium has cubic 8-fold coordination in the metallic form and in several of its alloys with metals of large radius. It is also 8-coordinate in the dilithionaphthalene complex shown in Fig. 4.9d here the aromatic... 

Figure 4.11 Molecular structures of typical crown-ether complexes with alkali metal cations (a) sodium-water-benzo-I5-crown-5 showing pentagonal-pyramidal coordination of Na by 6 oxygen atoms (b) 18-crown-6-potassium-ethyl acetoacetate enolate showing unsymmelrical coordination of K by 8 oxygen atoms and (c) the RbNCS ion pair coordinated by dibenzo-I8-crown-6 to give seven-fold coordination about Rb.

Figure 6.1 The icosahedron and some of its symmetry elements, (a) An icosahedron has 12 vertices and 20 triangular faces defined by 30 edges, (b) The preferred pentagonal pyramidal coordination polyhedron for 6-coordinate boron in icosahedral structures as it is not possible to generate an infinite three-dimensional lattice on the basis of fivefold symmetry, various distortions, translations and voids occur in the actual crystal structures, (c) The distortion angle 0, which varies from 0° to 25°, for various boron atoms in crystalline boron and metal borides.

Carbon is known with all coordination numbers from 0 to 8 though compounds in which it is 3- or 4-coordinate are the most numerous. Some typical examples are summarized in the Panel (p. 291). Particular mention should also be made of hypercoordinate non-classical carbo-nium ions such as 5-coordinate CHj", square pyramidal CsHs (cf. the isoelectronic cluster B3H9, p. 154), pentagonal pyramidal C6Me6 " (cf. iso-electronic Bf,Hio, p. 154) and the bicyclic cation 2-norbomyl, C7H] 1... 

Nonclassical type structures of borides involving different basic units of B atoms, e.g., the B5 pentagonal pyramid in MgB4, the B octahedron in Sm2B3 and finally the B 2 octahedra in Mg2Bi4, MgAlBi4 and NaxBogBi4, are considered here. 

In the solid state, the (T -Me5C5)Si cation in 25 TPFPB displayed only a weak interaction with the anionic part, featuring an almost ideal pentagonal-pyramidal geometry (Figure 2.1). 

This outstanding behavior of bis(pentamethylcyclopendienyl)stannylene has been explained by the energetically favorable formation of the ionic compound 79 which contains the 6-membered cluster C5Sn 174>. The structure of the boron tetrafluoride compound is illustrated in Fig. 15 the tin atom in the cation is located at the apex of a pentagonal pyramide 173). 

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