| DISCOVERY |
Xenon and gold: Joined in chemical matrimony
The first isolable compound in which a noble gas is bonded to a metal--a noble metal, at that--has been prepared serendipitously. Authors were trying to isolate the elusive gold(I) monofluoride (AuF) by reducing AuF3 with xenon gas in a superacidic mixture of SbF5 and liquid anhydrous hydrogen fluoride. Instead of AuF, they isolated black crystals of [AuIIXe4]2+ 2[Sb2F11]-. It's clear from the X-ray crystal structure that the new cation is a square planar complex. The compound is stable at room temperature in pressurized xenon, or at -40 C at 1 atm xenon. Author doesn't know whether other metals can be induced to bond to xenon, an element known to form bonds with only a handful of main-group elements
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