Moontanman Posted November 22, 2013 Share Posted November 22, 2013 Inner shell electrons being shared is a wild thought to me but I am limited to high school chemistry (which I did perfectly in btw ) but a very interesting development... http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=chemical-bonds-inner-shell-electrons&WT.mc_id=SA_WR_20131122 How many more predictions from Star Trek have to come true before it is canonized 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mississippichem Posted November 23, 2013 Share Posted November 23, 2013 The claim is a bold one for sure. The chemistry blogosphere is full of cheers and jeers because the possibility of these types of covalent interactions (where a large portion of the electron density is contributed from non-valence atomic orbitals) has been a contentious issue for some time now. I have my reservations about how anyone plans to test this. The conditions under which these compounds would form DO NOT lend themselves to clean, irrefutable spectroscopic analysis. My bet would be that someone tries to observe these chemical abominations with some sophisticated calorimetry or other thermo-analytical method. I highly anticipate the first attempts at real life observation of these compounds both for the chemistry itself and what it might say about high level quantum chemical computation as a predictive tool in general. I've been following the literature closely on this issue and will continue to. Thanks for sharing it with SFN, and touche for beating me to it. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unity+ Posted November 23, 2013 Share Posted November 23, 2013 A chemist has calculated that under very high pressure not just the outer electrons but the inner ones, too, could form bonds. Maybe this could be a new source of energy because maybe energy would be released when the pressure is dropped, maybe? This is an interesting new find. I hope it becomes a way to produce green energy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Cuthber Posted November 23, 2013 Share Posted November 23, 2013 It's a fundamental aspect of physics that you can't paint an electron purple. The electrons in an atom are all "mixed" and none of them can be specifically said to be an inner- or outer- shell electron. And the paper is entirely theoretical- no actual experiment has been done (and in a way, I don't blame them- high pressure fluorine isn't nice stuff to play with). What I'd like to see is a way to distinguish clearly between a Van der Waals compound* of CsF and F2 and this new "inner electron" compound CsF3. * something like this http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v358/n6381/abs/358046a0.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unity+ Posted November 24, 2013 Share Posted November 24, 2013 It's a fundamental aspect of physics that you can't paint an electron purple. The electrons in an atom are all "mixed" and none of them can be specifically said to be an inner- or outer- shell electron. And the paper is entirely theoretical- no actual experiment has been done (and in a way, I don't blame them- high pressure fluorine isn't nice stuff to play with). What I'd like to see is a way to distinguish clearly between a Van der Waals compound* of CsF and F2 and this new "inner electron" compound CsF3. * something like this http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v358/n6381/abs/358046a0.html Well, I don't think they tried to "paint an electron purple", however I think it dealt with the idea that atoms don't touch in a way where they are completely compressed, but are merely connected through forces, which drives the valence electrons of atoms to connect in order for form molecules. However, in this case, theoretically it seems possible to compress them enough where not only the valence electrons come in contact, but the other electrons inside the atom become a part of the event of connection between atoms to form molecules. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Cuthber Posted November 24, 2013 Share Posted November 24, 2013 If you talk about "Inner shell electrons" you have "painted them purple" in that you have said that they are distinguishable from other electrons. They are not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unity+ Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 If you talk about "Inner shell electrons" you have "painted them purple" in that you have said that they are distinguishable from other electrons. They are not. I know that they aren't, I can agree, but the name of the electrons relates to their position in the atom. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Cuthber Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 (edited) They don't have a position in the atom. If they did, you would be specifying them, and you can't. All the electrons are in a superposition of all the states. Having said all that, who cares? They haven't actually done any chemistry. Edited November 26, 2013 by John Cuthber Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unity+ Posted November 26, 2013 Share Posted November 26, 2013 They don't have a position in the atom. If they did, you would be specifying them, and you can't. All the electrons are in a superposition of all the states. Having said all that, who cares? They haven't actually done any chemistry. I was referring to...never mind it doesn't matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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