Copper(I) fluoride or cuprous fluoride is an
inorganic compound
In chemistry, an inorganic compound is typically a chemical compound that lacks carbon–hydrogen bonds, that is, a compound that is not an organic compound. The study of inorganic compounds is a subfield of chemistry known as '' inorganic chemis ...
with the chemical formula CuF. Its existence is uncertain. It was reported in 1933 to have a
sphalerite
Sphalerite (sometimes spelled sphaelerite) is a sulfide mineral with the chemical formula . It is the most important ore of zinc. Sphalerite is found in a variety of deposit types, but it is primarily in sedimentary exhalative, Mississippi-V ...
-type
crystal structure
In crystallography, crystal structure is a description of the ordered arrangement of atoms, ions or molecules in a crystalline material. Ordered structures occur from the intrinsic nature of the constituent particles to form symmetric pattern ...
. Modern textbooks state that CuF is not known, since fluorine is so
electronegative
Electronegativity, symbolized as , is the tendency for an atom of a given chemical element to attract shared electrons (or electron density) when forming a chemical bond. An atom's electronegativity is affected by both its atomic number and the ...
that it will always oxidise copper to its +2
oxidation state
In chemistry, the oxidation state, or oxidation number, is the hypothetical charge of an atom if all of its bonds to different atoms were fully ionic. It describes the degree of oxidation (loss of electrons) of an atom in a chemical compound. C ...
.
Complexes of CuF such as
Ph3P)3CuFare, however, known and well characterised.
Synthesis and reactivity
Unlike other copper(I) halides like
copper(I) chloride
Copper(I) chloride, commonly called cuprous chloride, is the lower chloride of copper, with the formula CuCl. The substance is a white solid sparingly soluble in water, but very soluble in concentrated hydrochloric acid. Impure samples appear g ...
, copper(I) fluoride tends to
disproportionate
In chemistry, disproportionation, sometimes called dismutation, is a redox reaction in which one compound of intermediate oxidation state converts to two compounds, one of higher and one of lower oxidation states. More generally, the term can ...
into copper(II) fluoride and copper in a one-to-one ratio at ambient conditions, unless it is stabilised through complexation as in the example of
u(N2)F
:2CuF → Cu + CuF
2
See also
*
Copper(II) fluoride, the other simple fluoride of copper
References
{{fluorine compounds
Fluorides
Metal halides
Copper(I) compounds
Zincblende crystal structure
Hypothetical_chemical_compounds