Chemguide: Support for CIE A level Chemistry

28.2: General characteristic chemical properties of the first set of transition elements, titanium to copper

Learning outcomes 28.2.1, 28.2.2, 28.2.3, 28.2.4, 28.2.5 and 28.2.6

These statements are an introduction to transition metal complexes.

I am taking these statements together because they are all part of the same topic. As you read through this page, keep an eye on the syllabus statements and tick them off as you have done them

Introduction

There is far more about complex ions on Chemguide than you will need for CIE purposes. So I am going to ask you to read some Chemguide material as background, and then I will pull all the specific information that you need together on this page.

First read the page introducing complex metal ions.

Don't try to remember all of this - there is more there than you really need. What you need to do is to understand what is going on.

For CIE purposes, the most important things to know in this introductory bit is:

• A ligand is a molecule or ion with a lone pair of electrons, capable of forming a dative covalent (co-ordinate covalent) bond to a metal atom or ion.

• A complex is a molecule or ion containing a central metal atom or ion surrounded by one or more ligands.

• Ligands can be monodentate, bidentate or polydentate. "poly" in this context just means anything more than 2. The Chemguide page you have just looked at gives examples of quadridentate and hexadentate ligands - these both count as polydentate ligands.

  Concentrate on the ligands mentioned in the syllabus statement 28.2.3. You almost certainly don't need to worry about haem.

• The co-ordination number of a complex ion counts the number of co-ordinate bonds being formed by the metal ion at its centre. That is exactly the same as saying that it counts the number of atoms directly bonded to the central metal atom.

  It does not count the number of ligands. If you had three bidentate ligands around a central ion, there would be a total of 6 co-ordinate bonds being formed with the three ligands.

Complexes don't have to involve a transition metal. You will find an example of an aluminium complex ion on that page. It is more common with transition metals, though.

Now read the page about the shapes of complex ions.

You don't need the later part about stereoisomerism at the moment. This is dealt with in Section 28.4.

The page gives you examples of octahedral, tetrahedral and square planar complexes, but not a linear one - which the syllabus also wants.

The simplest of these is the diamminesilver(I) ion, Ag(NH₃)₂⁺. The silver ion is in the middle with the two ammonia molecules joined on at 180°. They are joined using lone pairs on the two nitrogen atoms bonding to empty orbitals on the silver ion - dative covalent bonding again.

The bond angles in the other complexes are pretty obvious:

• In octahedral complexes: 90°

• In square planar complexes: 90°

• In tetrahedral complexes: 109.5°

Then read the page about naming complex metal ions.

The names look scary, but are actually less complicated than the names of organic compounds. Again, make sure that you understand this page, so that if you come across a name, you aren't frightened by it.

The specific complexes mentioned by the syllabus

You will meet these again in statement 28.2.7, but I am just bringing them together here for tidiness.

We will look at these in some detail in the next statement. Notice for now how similar they are. The only essential difference is in the number of water molecules which are replaced by ammonia molecules if you use an excess of ammonia.

Predicting the formula and charge of a given complex

This is for statement 28.2.6(b). Two examples:

Example 1

Work out the formula and the charge of a 6-co-ordinated complex between Cr³⁺ ions and ammonia molecules.

Ammonia molecules are monodentate ligands - they only form one co-ordinate bond to the central ion. The complex will have 6 zero-charged ammonia molecules, attached to a 3+ chromium ion. The overall charge will be +3.

[Cr(NH₃)₆]³⁺

Example 2

Work out the formula and the charge of a 6-co-ordinated complex between Fe³⁺ ions and ethanedioate ions, (C₂O₄)^2-. Ethanedioate ions are bidentate.

If the ion is 6-co-ordinated, and the ethanedioate ions each form two bonds to the central ion (they are bidentate), then you only need 3 ethanedioate ions.

The total charges will be 3+ for the ion and 6- for the three ethanedioate ion ligands - a net charge of 3-.

[Fe(C₂O₄)₃]^3-

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