Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-chemistry-course-of-the-year-4-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2022/paper-3/section-e/45/d/solution

Without a blocking diphosphine, square-planar Pd(II) can bind four terminal pyridines. If there are Fe units and Pd centres, saturation requires . The given ratio and charge yield , . Thus has Fe at the eight cube corners and Pd at the six face centres. Each corner Fe connects through its three arms to the three neighbouring face-centre Pd atoms; each Pd accepts four pyridines around its square face.
There are 24 Fe-unit-to-Pd connections, checked independently as . It is useful to distinguish the cube of eight Fe nodes from its dual octahedron of six Pd nodes: both describe the same assembly, with different node sets.

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