The structures of binary compounds. I. Phenomenological structure maps

Abstract

A recently proposed phenomenological chemical scale chi is shown to provide excellent structural separation of all binary compounds with a given stoichiometry A_mB_n within a single-two-dimensional structure map ( chi _A, chi _B). The following structure maps are plotted and discussed: AB, AB₂, AB₃, AB₄, AB₅, AB₆, AB₁₁, AB₁₂, AB₁₃, A₂B₃, A₂B₅, A₂B₁₇, A₃B₄, A₃B₅, A₃B₇, A₄B₅, and A₆B₂₃. These maps are important for both pedagogical and predictive purposes. A structural energy difference theorem is proved which allows the microscopic origin of the structural trends to be explored in terms of physically intuitive concepts such as atomic size, electronegativity difference, and valence. The remaining papers of this series examine theoretically the pd-, dd- and sp-sp-bonded AB compounds.