Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-chemistry-b-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2025/paper-2/b6/b/iii/solution

The relevant spectrochemical series order is O-bound nitrito ammonia N-bound nitro. A pi-donor ligand tends to raise the metal orbitals derived from , reducing the octahedral splitting; a pi-acceptor ligand stabilizes those orbitals, increasing the splitting. Since photon energy is , the stronger-field complex absorbs at the shorter wavelength. Thus
The corresponding spectroscopic wavenumbers are approximately , and . These are the observed band energies, not three exact independent determinations of : low-spin transition energies also contain electron repulsion contributions, and replacing one ligand lowers the ideal octahedral symmetry. The relative assignment is nevertheless robust.

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