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Concept Review Questions Chapter 10

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    290614
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    Concept Review Questions

    Section 1

    1. What is the difference between an organometallic compound and a metal-organic compound?

    2. What is kakodyloxide?

    3. What is Zeise’s salt and what is unusual about its structure and bonding?

    4. What is the Mond process?

    5. Explain why the physical and chemical properties of ferrocene are inconsistent with the monohapto coordination of Fe by cyclopentadienyl ligands.

    6. Describe qualitatively how the cyclopentadienyl ligands are bonded to Fe in ferrocene.

    7. Explain why the cyclobutadiene is not square planar in free state but is square planar when coordinated to transition metals in Ƞ4 fashion?

    8. Explain briefly why cyclooctatetraene makes sandwich complexes (metallocenes) only with very large metal ions?

    Section 2

    1. Explain why carbonyls are interesting and important.

    2. Which molecular orbitals of CO can be involved in bonding with transition metals? Explain why these orbitals can be involved.

    3. Which types of binding do you know for carbonyls in which CO acts as 2-electron donor?

    4. Which types of binding do you know for carbonyls in which CO acts as 4- and 6- electron donor?

    5. Which types of binding do you know for carbonyls in which CO acts as an electron acceptor? Which of these binding types leads to a stronger interaction? Explain this.

    6. What is the Chatt-Dewar-Duncanson model for carbonyls?

    7. What is meant by pi-backbonding in carbonyls?

    8. Explain what the strength of the pi-backbonding in carbonyls depends on?

    9. Explain how one can derive the structure of the most simple carbonyls?

    10. How can one experimentally measure the strength of the pi-backbonding in carbonyls?

    11. What is unusual about the structure of Co2(CO)8? Explain.

    12. What is unusual about the structure of V(CO)6? Explain.

    13. Why do the most simple group 4 and group 12 carbonyls not exist?

    14. Why don’t highly positively charged carbonyls exist?

    15. Why don’t highly negatively charged dimeric carbonyls exist?

    Section 3

    1. What is meant by the concept of isolobality?

    2. Explain how the concept of isolobality is helpful for the prediction of stable structures?

    3. Explain how one can explain the structure of Co4(CO)12 using the concept of isolobality.

    4. What is the structural difference between Co4(CO)12 and Ir4(CO)12. Explain this difference.

    5. The stability of the most simple monomeric carbonyls decreases from group 6 to group 10. Explain.

    6. The stability of the most simple monomeric carbonyls decreases from period 4 to period 6. Explain.

    7. Explain why the following complexes are considered ethene and ethine complexes, respectively.

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    8. What is a carbonyl hydride?

    9. Explain why HCo(CO)4 is more acidic than HMn(CO)5?

    10. Why is the CN- ligand a stronger sigma-donor and a weaker pi-acceptor compared to the CO ligand?

    11. Explain why the CN- ligand tends to make complex cations, while the CO ligand prefers to make complex anions?

    12. Explain why the carbon atom is the reactive end in cyanide complexes?

    13. What are the two binding modes in nitrosyl (NO) complexes?

    14. Why is a neutral NO ligand never a two electron donating ligand?

    15. How can one explain the two different binding modes in NO complexes?

    16. Why is phosphine a pi-accepting ligand while ammonia is not?

    17. Why is PF3 a stronger pi-acceptor than PH3?

    18. Why is PMe3 is stronger sigma-donor than PH3?

    19. Why is H2 a pi-accepting ligand?

    20. Explain how the pi-accepting properties lead to the dissociation of the H-H bond in the H2 molecule when H2 acts as a ligand.


    Dr. Kai Landskron (Lehigh University). If you like this textbook, please consider to make a donation to support the author's research at Lehigh University: Click Here to Donate.


    This page titled Concept Review Questions Chapter 10 is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Kai Landskron.

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