ligand q

[Collin Li]

oh and coblin, do you have any advice on the writing of equations??? there seems to be at least 2 options for every reaction!!!! are the general equations we learnt in unit 3 sufficient for unit 4???

Yeah, I don't know what you mean by the general equations though... that was more of a year 10 or year 11 thing. I think if you mean those acid + base reactions... then you might want to have a look at some in your text book: they're not particularly as easy because if you have an acidic oxide with no free H+ (i.e.: SO2), what do you do?

[Jasper]

Well, I'm not sure what VCE does, because they do their ligands completely wrong! The formula should be:

[Cu(NH3)4(H2O)2]SO4

The SO4 2- ion is just a "counterion" to balance the charge of the overall complex in the square brackets. Copper is in an octahedral 6 coordinate complex, with the ligands NH3 and H2O.

NH3 and H2O are the only ones you show the dotted lines linking to, because they are the actual ligands. The SO4 2- "counterion" only balances out the +2 charge that the copper centre possesses, but it is only an electrostatic attraction (as opposed to a ligand interaction, i.e.: the dotted lines you use in VCE).

We don't have to draw in the counterion when it asks to draw the complex, right?

[Collin Li]

Well, I'm not sure what VCE does, because they do their ligands completely wrong! The formula should be:

[Cu(NH3)4(H2O)2]SO4

The SO4 2- ion is just a "counterion" to balance the charge of the overall complex in the square brackets. Copper is in an octahedral 6 coordinate complex, with the ligands NH3 and H2O.

NH3 and H2O are the only ones you show the dotted lines linking to, because they are the actual ligands. The SO4 2- "counterion" only balances out the +2 charge that the copper centre possesses, but it is only an electrostatic attraction (as opposed to a ligand interaction, i.e.: the dotted lines you use in VCE).

We don't have to draw in the counterion when it asks to draw the complex, right?

Nope. If you want to be safe, you can just draw the complex, put it in square brackets, with the charge outside, then draw the SO4 2- ion next to it (and there wouldn't be any dashed lines indicating an interaction... it's just how you write ionic structures, you write the cation then the anion).