Metal Complexes In Aqueous Solutions

Stability constants are fundamental to understanding the behavior of metal ions in aqueous solution. Such understanding is important in a wide variety of areas, such as metal ions in biology, biomedical applications, metal ions in the environment, extraction metallurgy, food chemistry, and metal ions in many industrial processes. In spite of this importance, it appears that many inorganic chemists have lost an appreciation for the importance of stability constants, and the thermodynamic aspects of complex formation, with attention focused over the last thirty years on newer areas, such as organometallic chemistry. This book is an attempt to show the richness of chemistry that can be revealed by stability constants, when measured as part of an overall strategy aimed at understanding the complexing properties of a particular ligand or metal ion. Thus, for example, there are numerous crystal structures of the Li+ ion with crown ethers. What do these indicate to us about the chemistry of Li+ with crown ethers? In fact, most of these crystal structures are in a sense misleading, in that the Li+ ion forms no complexes, or at best very weak complexes, with familiar crown ethers such as l2-crown-4, in any known solvent. Thus, without the stability constants, our understanding of the chemistry of a metal ion with any particular ligand must be regarded as incomplete. In this book we attempt to show how stability constants can reveal factors in ligand design which could not readily be deduced from any other physical technique.

Considerable attention has been focussed on non-aqueous chemistry in the last decade and this situation has arisen no doubt from a realization of the vast application of this branch of chemistry. Within this field much energetic work has been channelled into the determination of the coordination chemistry of tran sition metals in these solvent 8ystems. Elaborate experimental techniques have been developed to discover, in particular, the magnetic and spectral properties of complex compounds, and the theoretical background of such systems has been expanded to corroborate, as far as possible, the experimental results. This text has, however, a different bias from many books currently available on this branch of chemistry, and is designed to be a survey of known facts on many of the non-aqueous solvents currently in use mainly in the field of halogen chemistry, together with a discussion of these facts in the light of accepted principles. As such, it is hoped to close a gap in the literature of which many workers and advanced students in this field will be aware. The treatment is meant to be selective rather than completely comprehensive and must unevitably reflect some of the special interests of the author.

Critical Survey of Stability Constants of EDTA Complexes focuses on the computations, values, and characteristics of stability constants. The book emphasizes that for a critical discussion of experimentally determined stability constants, it is important to consider the precision of the values that manifests the self-consistency of the constant, taking into consideration the random errors. The publication reviews the stability constants of metal complexes. The numerical calculations affirm the reactions and transformations of metal ions when exposed to varying conditions. The text also presents a list of enthalpies of reactions with (ethylenedinitrito)tetra-acetic acid (EDTA) obtained by direct calorimetric measurements. The book also notes that in order to identify reliable metal complex stability constants for a ligand, it is important to know the formation constants of protonated species. The text is a dependable reference for readers wanting to dig deeper into the stability constants of EDTA complexes.

Emphasises on contemporary applications and an intuitive problem-solving approach that helps students discover the exciting potential of chemical science. This book incorporates fresh applications from the three major areas of modern research: materials, environmental chemistry, and biological science.