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Henry Rzepa's Blog

Henry Rzepa's Blog
Chemistry with a twist
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Following on from a search for long C-C bonds, here is the same repeated for C=C double bonds. The query restricts the search to each carbon having just two non-metallic substituents. To avoid conjugation with these, they each are 4-coordinated; the carbons themselves are three-coordinated.

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Six years ago, I posted on the nature of a then recently reported[cite]10.1002/anie.200803859[/cite] Cr-Cr quintuple bond. The topic resurfaced as part of the discussion on a more recent post on NSF 3 , and a sub-topic on the nature of the higher order bonding in C 2 . The comment made a connection between that discussion and the Cr-Cr bond alluded to above.

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The post on applying VSEPR ("valence shell electron pair repulsion") theory to the geometry of ClF 3 has proved perennially popular. So here is a follow-up on another little molecue, F 3 SN. As the name implies, it is often represented with an S≡N bond. Here I take a look at the conventional analysis. This is as follows: Six valence electrons on the central S atom.

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In answering tutorial problems, students often need skills in deciding how much time to spend on explaining what does not happen, as well as what does. Here I explore alternatives to the mechanism outlined in the previous post to see what computation has to say about what does (or might) not happen.

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Sodium borohydride is the tamer cousin of lithium aluminium hydride (LAH). It is used in aqueous solution to e.g. reduce aldehydes and ketones, but it leaves acids, amides and esters alone. Here I start an exploration of why it is such a different reducing agent. Initially, I am using Li, not Na (X=Li), to enable a more or less equal comparison with LAH, with water molecules to solvate rather than ether (n=2,3,5) and R set to Me.