Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-chemistry-course-of-the-year-4-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2022/paper-2/section-h/33/b/i/solution

A shell with angular momentum holds electrons. Successively filling the shells listed in the source gives the closed-shell totals
For the delocalized count is , matching . The tetrahedral aluminium core is consequently consistent with the jellium model. Counting the same eight electrons as though the tetrahedron were an ordinary closo Wade cluster would fail: a four-vertex closo framework would require skeletal electrons. The competing models use different physical assumptions and should not be interchanged just because both involve a polyhedron.

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