Inorganic Chemistry, 4th edition by Catherine Housecroft, Alan G. Sharpe

                Ebook Size : 63.6 MB

                Download : Inorganic Chemistry, 4th Edition 

Inorganic chemistry: it is not an isolated branch
of chemistry. If organic chemistry is considered to be the ‘chemistry of carbon’,  then  inorganic  chemistry  is  the  chemistry  of  all elements except carbon. In its broadest sense, this is true, but  of  course  there  are  overlaps  between  branches  of chemistry. A topical example is the chemistry of the fullerenes, this  was  the  subject  of  the  award  of  the  1996  Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Professors Sir Harry Kroto, Richard Smalley   and   Robert   Curl.   An  understanding   of   such molecules, carbon nanotubes and graphene sheets involves studies by organic, inorganic and physical chemists, physicists and materials scientists.

Inorganic chemistry is not simply the study of elements and compounds; it is also the study of physical principles. For example, in order to understand why some compounds are soluble in a given solvent and others are not, we apply laws  of  thermodynamics.  If  our  aim  is  to  propose  details of  a  reaction mechanism,  then  a  knowledge  of  reaction kinetics is needed. Overlap between physical and inorganic chemistry is also significant in the study of molecular structure.  In  the  solid  state,  X-ray  diffraction  methods  are routinely used to obtain pictures of the spatial arrangements of atoms  in a  molecule  or molecular  ion.  To interpret the behaviour of molecules in solution, we use physical techniques such  as  nuclear  magnetic  resonance  (NMR)  spectroscopy;  the  equivalence or  not  of  particular  nuclei  on  a spectroscopic  timescale  may  indicate whether  a  molecule is static or undergoing a dynamic process.

The application of a wide range of physical techniques in inorganic chemistry is the topic of Chapter 4. The aims of Chapters 1 and 2 In Chapters 1 and 2, we outline some concepts fundamental to   an   understanding   of   inorganic  chemistry.   We  have assumed  that  readers  are  to  some  extent  familiar  with most of these concepts and our aim is to give a point of reference for review purposes.

An atom is the smallest unit quantity of an element that is capable of existence, either alone or in chemical combination with other atoms of the same or another element. The fundamental particles of which atoms are composed are the proton, electron and neutron.

A neutron and a proton have approximately the same mass and,  relative  to  these,  an  electron  has  negligible  mass (Table  1.1).  The  charge  on  a  proton  is  positive  and  of equal magnitude, but opposite sign, to that on a negatively charged  electron. A neutron has no charge. In an atom of any element, there are equal numbers of protons and electrons  and  so  an  atom  is  neutral.  The nucleus of  an  atom consists  of  protons  and  (with  the  exception  of protium, see  Section  10.3)  neutrons,  and  is  positively  charged;  the nucleus  of  protium  consists  of  a  single  proton.  The  electrons   occupy   a   region   of   space   around   the   nucleus.

Nearly  all  the  mass  of  an  atom  is  concentrated  in  the nucleus,  but  the  volume  of  the  nucleus  is  only  a  tiny fraction  of  that  of  the  atom;  the radius  of  the  nucleus  is about  10 15m  while  the  atom  itself  is  about  10^5 times larger  than  this.  It  follows  that  the  density  of  the  nucleus is enormous, more than 10^12 times that of the metal Pb. Although   chemists   tend   to   consider   the   electron, proton  and  neutron  as  the  fundamental  (or  elementary) particles of an atom, particle physicists deal with yet smaller particles.