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What is the coordination number for BeCl2?

I am confused, should it be 2 or 4?
If I consider
is 2.

BeCl

as a chain structure the coordination number is 4, and in the gas phase it

inorganic-chemistry

coordination-compounds

edited Aug 31 at 12:37

jonsca
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asked Jun 5 at 13:16

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DSinghvi
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2 Answers
Coordination number is determined by compound. It is normal for an element to have several
different CN. Preferable CN can change for an element depending on the atom's neighbors. For
example, Fe has preferrable CN=6 for fluorine anions, but CN=4 for chloride anions. When heated
or under extreme pressure preferable CN may change as well. For example, S iO2 has highpressure modification with 6-coordinated silicon and 3-coordinated oxygen, while at normal
pressure they are 4- and 2-coordinated respectively.
In case of Be it prefers, just like all elements of the 2nd row, to have CN=4, but in many cases is
forced to live with smaller numbers. BTW, in gas phase, BeC l 2 exists in equilibrium between
monomer with Be's CN=2 and dimer with Be's CN=3.
In your case CN for Be in cristalline BeC l 2 is 4, while in gas phase it is 3 and 2 for dimere and
monomer respectively. There is no 'one CN for Be atom right for all Be compounds.'
answered Jun 5 at 15:28
permeakra
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same compound can have different CN .I mean is there any explanation to it DSinghvi Jun 5 at 15:40
@DSinghvi being sarcastic Of course there is! The actual free energy of a system is a very complex function of
coordinates of the atoms and the environment. Joy! It does not necessarily have exactly one minimum! Even more
joy! There are no simple rules to find how many and where! meaning that we have to do it hard way, using X-ray and
quantum chemistry to find ones. For some systems there are well-working empirical rules to find wich position may
be close to local minimum like for CHNOSF compounds, but even they may fail. Being simple: it is so because there
is no reason to be other way. permeakra Jun 5 at 17:25
I WANTED TO KNOW why it happen qualitatively @permeakra DSinghvi Jun 5 at 17:27
Again, the general answer is the same. CN is not something to work to much around it. Normally, Be has CN 4. If
you use violence, you can force it to have another CN, and it so happens, that BeC l2 and Be 2 C l4 are local
minimums, so in extreme circumstances Be will adopt these forms as trade-off between having too much kinetic
energy to stay in crystal structure and attempt to follow octet rule. In said structure octet rule is followed throw
additional pi-donation from Cl to Be, which is not as energy-efficient as sigma-bonds permeakra Jun 5 at 17:35

Do you know the answer of my second question that you may find in newest question DSinghvi Jun 5 at 17:39

Beryllium is the most electronegative of the Group 1 and Group 2 elements (excluding hydrogen)
and so rather than lose 2 electrons (and become Be +2 - a lot of charge on such a small atom) it
can often bond covalently. Just like with carbon, the covalent bonding will involve mixing of
beryllium's 2 s and 2 p orbitals. The coordination number for Beryllium can vary depending upon
how the orbitals mix and the what hybridization results. In the gas phase the BeCl 2 monomer has
a linear structure and the coordination number is 2. This is because the molecule is sp hybridized
with two empty p orbitals. sp hybridization with two empty p orbitals requires bonding to two groups
(coordination number = 2) in a linear arrangement. In the solid phase, where other BeCl 2
molecules are close, the chlorine atom from one BeCl 2 molecule can also form a dative bond to
an adjacent beryllium atom. In this case the molecules can rehybridize to sp3 and form 4 bonds
(coordination number = 4) arranged along the vertices of a tetrahedron. In this case the formerly
empty p orbitals have become sp3 orbitals and share the lone pair of electrons contributed from a
chlorine atom on an adjacent BeCl 2 molecule.
edited Jun 5 at 20:23

answered Jun 5 at 14:40

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ron
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i know the hybridisation but I want coordination number\ @ron DSinghvi Jun 5 at 14:52