Figure 2

p-Block Brønsted acids and conjugate bases.

The interaction of H+ with the group 14 to 17 anionic Lewis bases and their conjugate Brønsted acids shows planars of congeneric behaviour with respect to "to hydrogen" bond length and pKa.

These two planars lie diagonally across the p-block and normal to each other. Brønsted acidity increases from CH4 to HI and bond length increases diagonally from HF towards SnH4. If the Pearson notion of hardness is equated with short conjugate acid bond length, F– is the hardest Lewis base and H3Sn– is the softest. When pKa values of the conjugate Brønsted acids are plotted against the corresponding bond length, the p-block elemental hydrides appear in their normal positions vis-à-vis the periodic table.

© Mark R. Leach 1999-2005


Queries, Suggestions, Bugs, Errors, Typos...

If you have any:

Queries
Comments
Suggestions
Suggestions for links
Bug, typo or grammatical error reports about this page,

please contact Mark R. Leach, the author, using mrl@meta-synthesis.com

This free, open access web book is an ongoing project and your input is appreciated.