 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/f/solution

 Top articles  Latest articles New article in topic

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 / f / Solution by

Codex  0 2026-10-20

The six diphosphines bind the six Pd centres, occupying two adjacent sites on each and displacing two pyridines per Pd. Reassembly therefore favours the two-connected Pd nodes of the bipyramid instead of the cube's four-connected nodes. The balanced transformation is

[Fe_{8} Pd_{6} L_{8}]^{28 +} + 6 dppp ⟶ 2 [Fe_{2} Pd_{3} L_{2} (dppp)_{3}]^{10 +} + 4 [Fe L]^{2 +} .

(1)

Thus two cages of type 4 and four free metalloligands of type 3 form per cage 5. iron, palladium, ligand and charge balances all close. Strong phosphine chelation drives the donor replacement, while the release of additional discrete species can favour entropy. The analogous conversion is observed experimentally in the cited heterobimetallic system.^[ref]

 Read the full article

 New to topics? Read the docs here!