Talk:Bismuth chloride

Structure
I recall from a 1950's textbook that at low temperatures bismuth chloride is a covalent polymer like the compounds of arsenic and antimony but at higher temperatures (normal room temperatures included) an ionic structure is preferred. Considering a cube, the unit cell has Bi3+ at the vertices and Cl- at the midpoint of each edge. This would give each Bi3+ six chloride neighbours and each chloride ion two bismuth ion neighbours, as is required to fit the formula BiCl3. Can any other contributor verify this or provide an appropriate structure diagram? Dajwilkinson 23:45, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I checked the "bible" of inorganic chem. and it indicates that the BiCl3 structure is polymeric. I think that you are correct that cuboidal clusters do occur in the bismuth halides, or subhalides.  More later.--Smokefoot 00:41, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

A few references on the topic:


 * Acta Cryst. (1972). B28, 2885


 * Acta Cryst. (1971). B27, 2298-2304 (correction to coordinates)


 * Fresenius' J. Anal. Chem. (1982) 312, 17-18

All involve pyramidal BiCl3 molecules with five chlorides further away from Bi:



Ben (talk) 20:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)