What is the geometry of the interhalogen, #IF_7#?

1 Answer
anor277
Jun 28, 2017

Well, we could predict its structure by VESPER........

Explanation:

We have #56*e# to distribute over 8 centres.......and thus 28 electron pairs. A pentagonal bipyramid is specified with a CENTRAL 7-coordinate iodine atom (why is the iodine central? well, because it is the least electronegative element.)

From the wiki link......

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iodine_heptafluoride

This is not something I would like to handle.

And how would you prove the structure? This is not a straightforward proposition: x-ray crystallography; solution NMR by #""^19F# NMR spectroscopy, which should show 2 fluorine environments at low temperature........As to its polarity, I presume that it would go up in non-polar solvents.

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