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Inside Back Cover: The HgF 2 Ionic Switch: A Triumph of Electrostatics against Relativistic Odds (Chem. Eur. J. 47/2015)
Author(s) -
Donald Kelling J.,
Kretz William J.,
Omorodion Oluwarotimi
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Reports
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.201584703
Subject(s) - ionic bonding , electrostatics , chemistry , chemical physics , monomer , covalent bond , non covalent interactions , relativistic quantum chemistry , nucleation , cluster (spacecraft) , polar , crystallography , computational chemistry , molecule , physics , ion , atomic physics , hydrogen bond , polymer , quantum mechanics , organic chemistry , computer science , programming language
Evidence is provided for a transition from weak noncovalent interactions among HgF 2 monomers to stronger polar covalent interactions in mercury difluoride clusters, (HgF 2 ) n , as the size of the cluster (the value of n ) increases. This transition—the so‐called “ionic switch” that was predicted in an earlier article in this journal—is explained as a triumph of electrostatic interactions (which favor short and strong bonds) against the rigidity imposed on mercury dihalide molecules by relativistic effects in Hg. The observations afford some new insights into nucleation processes. The complete account can be found in the Full paper by K. J. Donald and colleagues on page 16848 ff.