Issue 11, 2015

A quantitative definition of hypervalency

Abstract

From the inception of Lewis' theory of chemical bonding, hypervalency has remained a point of difficulty that has not been fully resolved by the currently accepted qualitative definition of this term. Therefore, in this work, a quantitative measure of hypervalency has been developed. The only required input is the atomic charge map, which can be obtained from either quantum calculations or from experiment. Using this definition, it is found that well-known species such as O3, CH2N2 and ClO4, are indeed hypervalent, whilst others such as XeF4, PCl5 and SO42−, are not. Quantitative analysis of known species of general formulae XFnm, XClnm, and XOnm shows that there are no fundamental differences in chemical bonding for hypervalent and non-hypervalent species. Nevertheless, hypervalency is associated with chemical instability, as well as a high degree of covalent rather than ionic bonding. The implications for accepted Lewis structure conventions are discussed.

Graphical abstract: A quantitative definition of hypervalency

Associated articles

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
09 jun 2015
Accepted
14 aug 2015
First published
14 aug 2015
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2015,6, 6614-6623

Author version available

A quantitative definition of hypervalency

M. C. Durrant, Chem. Sci., 2015, 6, 6614 DOI: 10.1039/C5SC02076J

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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