Structure and Synthesis
Beryllium chloride is prepared by reaction of the metal with chlorine at high temperatures:
- Be + Cl2 → BeCl2
BeCl2 can also be prepared by carbothermal reduction of beryllium oxide in the presence of chlorine. BeCl2 can be prepared by treating Be metal with hydrogen chloride.
The solid is a 1-dimensional polymer consisting of edge-shared tetrahedra. In contrast, BeF2 is a 3-dimensional polymer, with a structure akin to that of quartz. In the gas phase, it exists both as a linear monomer and a bridged dimer with two bridging chlorine atoms where the beryllium atom is 3-coordinate. The linear shape of the monomeric form is as predicted by VSEPR theory. The linear shape contrasts with the monomeric forms of some of the dihalides of the heavier members of group 2, e.g. CaF2, SrF2, BaF2, SrCl2, BaCl2, BaBr2, and BaI2, which are all non-linear.
Read more about this topic: Beryllium Chloride
Famous quotes containing the words structure and/or synthesis:
“The syntactic component of a grammar must specify, for each sentence, a deep structure that determines its semantic interpretation and a surface structure that determines its phonetic interpretation.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“It is in this impossibility of attaining to a synthesis of the inner life and the outward that the inferiority of the biographer to the novelist lies. The biographer quite clearly sees Peel, say, seated on his bench while his opponents overwhelm him with perhaps undeserved censure. He sees him motionless, miserable, his head bent on his breast. He asks himself: “What is he thinking?” and he knows nothing.”
—Andre Maurois (1885–1967)