Tungsten(V) chloride is an
inorganic compound
An inorganic compound is typically a chemical compound that lacks carbon–hydrogen bondsthat is, a compound that is not an organic compound. The study of inorganic compounds is a subfield of chemistry known as ''inorganic chemistry''.
Inorgan ...
with the formula
W2 Cl10. This compound is analogous in many ways to the more familiar
molybdenum pentachloride.
Synthesis
The material is prepared by reduction of
tungsten hexachloride. One method involves the use of
tetrachloroethylene
Tetrachloroethylene, also known as perchloroethylene or under the systematic name tetrachloroethene, and abbreviations such as perc (or PERC), and PCE, is a chlorocarbon with the formula . It is a non-flammable, stable, colorless and heavy liqu ...
as the
reductant
:2 WCl
6 + C
2Cl
4 → W
2Cl
10 + C
2Cl
6
The blue green solid is volatile under vacuum and slightly soluble in nonpolar solvents. The compound is
oxophilic and is highly reactive toward
Lewis bases.
When the same reduction is conducted in the presence of
tetraphenylarsonium chloride, one obtains instead the hexachlorotungstate(V) salt:
:
Structure
The compound exists as a dimer, with a pair of octahedral tungsten(V) centres
bridged by two chloride ligands. The W---W separation is 3.814 Å, which is non-bonding. The compound is isostructural with Nb
2Cl
10 and Mo
2Cl
10. The compound evaporates to give trigonal bipyramidal WCl
5 monomers.
References
{{Chlorides
Chlorides
Tungsten halides
Tungsten(V) compounds