Date of Award

Summer 1965

Document Type

Thesis - Restricted

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Chemistry

First Advisor

Haworth, Daniel T.

Second Advisor

Kittsley, Scott L.

Third Advisor

Stricks, Walter

Abstract

From the twilight years of the eighteenth century when Henri Hoissan failed to react argon and fluorine until the dawning days of 1962, scientists had reverenced the dogma that the rare gases of the helium family were chemically inert. Until 1962 rare gas compounds existed only in the realm of science fiction. It was then that Neil Bartlett and D. H. Lohmann broke a glass diaphragm to release a new genie, a yellow solid whose empirical formula was XePtF6, the first rare gas compound. In the intervening years more than a dozen compounds of xenon, krypton, and radon have been synthesized and now engage the enthusiasm and energies of hundreds of scientists as they probe the properties of these once "hypothetical" compounds. The idea that the rare or noble gases were inert seemed to be pedagogically advantageous in as much as concepts of bonding evolved about it . Now that this "sacred cow" has been slain chemists will certainly investigate the possibility of other hitherto hypothetical compounds, asking such questions as : "If NaCl can exist , why not NaC12?" and "Under what conditions would such a compound be relatively stable?" Originally inspired by the recent developments in the chemistry of xenon, we thought that it would be instructive to investigate five series of hypothetical ionic compounds, namely, the alkali dihalides, the alkaline earth monohalides, the inter rare gas compounds, the rare gas monohalides, and the interhalogen ionic compounds. Our goal was to calculate both the crystal lattice energy and the enthalpy of formation of each member of each series.

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