Sunday, February 18, 2018

bond - Why can sulfur have an expanded octet but not oxygen?


In my search to understand the bonding in structures like $\ce{SF6}$ I found many sources that said it was because sulfur has d orbitals to accommodate an expanded octet, which made sense to me. But I also found sources like the paper by Reed and Weinhold (1986) that say d orbitals contribute very little to the bonding in $\ce{SF6}$. An alternative explanation is that $\ce{SF6}$ has three-center/two-electron bonds. What I don't understand is why compounds like $\ce{SF6}$, $\ce{ClF5}$, $\ce{PCl5}$ exist for third row element centers, but not $\ce{OF6}$ if it has nothing to do with d orbitals? References would be great.




No comments:

Post a Comment

digital communications - Understanding the Matched Filter

I have a question about matched filtering. Does the matched filter maximise the SNR at the moment of decision only? As far as I understand, ...