Uranium triiodide 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

chemical formula A chemical formula is a way of presenting information about the chemical proportions of atoms that constitute a particular chemical compound or molecule, using chemical element symbols, numbers, and sometimes also other symbols, such as pare ...

UI₃. It is a black solid that is soluble in water.

Production

Uranium triiodide can be obtained from the direct reaction of its constituent elements: :2 U + 3 I₂ → 2 UI₃ When the reaction is conducted in

tetrahydrofuran Tetrahydrofuran (THF), or oxolane, is an organic compound with the formula (CH2)4O. The compound is classified as heterocyclic compound, specifically a cyclic ether. It is a colorless, water- miscible organic liquid with low viscosity. It is ...

(THF), the product is the blue complex UI₃(THF)₄.

Properties

It crystallizes in the

orthorhombic crystal system In crystallography, the orthorhombic crystal system is one of the 7 crystal systems. Orthorhombic lattices result from stretching a cubic lattice along two of its orthogonal pairs by two different factors, resulting in a rectangular prism with ...

(

plutonium tribromide Plutonium(III) bromide is an inorganic salt of bromine and plutonium with the formula PuBr3. This radioactive green solid has few uses, however its crystal structure is often used as a structural archetype in crystallography Crystallography ...

-type) in the

space group In mathematics, physics and chemistry, a space group is the symmetry group of a repeating pattern in space, usually in three dimensions. The elements of a space group (its symmetry operations) are the rigid transformations of the pattern that ...

''Ccmm'' with the

lattice parameter A lattice constant or lattice parameter is one of the physical dimensions and angles that determine the geometry of the unit cells in a crystal lattice, and is proportional to the distance between atoms in the crystal. A simple cubic crystal has ...

s ''a'' = 432.8 pm, ''b'' = 1401.1 pm, and ''c'' = 1000.5 pm and four

formula unit In chemistry, a formula unit is the smallest unit of a non-molecular substance, such as an ionic compound, covalent network solid, or metal. It can also refer to the chemical formula for that unit. Those structures do not consist of discrete mol ...

s per

unit cell In geometry, biology, mineralogy and solid state physics, a unit cell is a repeating unit formed by the vectors spanning the points of a lattice. Despite its suggestive name, the unit cell (unlike a unit vector In mathematics, a unit vector i ...

. Uranium triiodide can be used as a

Lewis acid A Lewis acid (named for the American physical chemist Gilbert N. Lewis) is a chemical species that contains an empty orbital which is capable of accepting an electron pair from a Lewis base to form a Lewis adduct. A Lewis base, then, is any ...

catalyst for various Diels-Alder reactions carried out under mild conditions.

References

{{Actinide halides Uranium(III) compounds Iodides Actinide halides