Talk:Lewis acids and bases

Idiosyncratic Editing?
It appears to me that recent (Aug 2011) edits of this page have been rather self-serving and possibly not appropriate. I for one would like an explanation from FrozenMan as to what exactly is the reference for such ideas as "s-homo" and "lobe-HOMO" Lewis bases. As a chemistry educator and author I have never heard of such terms, and statements such as "There are generally thought to be four types of Lewis Bases and six types of Lewis Acids..." just doesn't ring a bell with me at all. Where is this coming from? Can we have a reference, please, that is not published by the author himself? The only references I can find are to a self-published (i.e. not peer reviewed?) book by Mark Leach entitled "Lewis Acid/Base Reaction Chemistry" reviewed in the Journal of Chemical Education -- http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/ed078p166. The three figures added (I am guessing) are from this book and do not by a long shot refer to anything that is "generally accepted."

As it is, I do not feel comfortable sending my students to this far too complicated description of Lewis acids and bases, and I will move to strike this section in the near future, depending upon the response to my questions. Hansonrstolaf (talk) 22:04, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, no one has rewritten this to be more clear yet, despite prior objections about the usefulness of the article, which is unclear to a layman and offers no good lead-in to the subject for the beginner, like so many scientific articles at Wikipedia, that offers several of examples of what principles the article is trying to convey and works up to a more expert level explanation of theory that can make a more practiced individual happy with deeper knowledge. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.215.242.83 (talk) 07:49, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Bronsted-Lowry
It should be mentioned that all Bronsted-Lowery acids and bases ("normal" as the article calls them) are also Lewis acids and bases (though not all Lewis acids and Bronsted-Lowery acids).
 * I hope I addressed your comments in my recent rewrite, good point. Walkerma 08:08, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

Let's add Drago-Wayland equation here, for strength determination. If nobody does it until I have a moment to sit down and read about it some more, I will. Cubbi 04:28, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

This article strongly represents a Theoretical Chemistry viewpoint. Lewis Acids are routinely used in Organic Chemistry, and there exist classifications of their strength according to their experimental reactivity. Adding a discussion about the actual experimental aspects of Lewis Acids would improve the quality and neutrality of the article. See for instance Lanthanide triflates, Zinc chloride, Boronic acid and Boron trifluoride 134.192.68.154 (talk) 15:53, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted that rather than creating ambiguity, Lewis theory expands the definition of acids to include all species that can accept a pair of electrons into an unfilled orbital. A connection should be made to Bronsted theory explaining that, in the Lewis view, Bronsted acids are acid donors, and that the actual acid is the proton since it has an unfilled orbital.

I agree that the use of Lewis acids in organic chemistry deserves significant mention, perhaps explaining that the diverse range of lone pair affinities of particular Lewis acids make them valuable because of their ability to selectively activate certain species to nucleophilic attack or, more generally speaking to include pericyclic reactions, lower the energy of the LUMO to enhance its ability to interact with the HOMO of the attacking species.

A qualitative ordering of the relative strengths of Lewis acids could be provided mentioning that it is derived from empirical generalizations. That being said, March's (5th Ed.) provides the following list, where X is a halogen or inorganic radical: BX3>AlX3>FeX3>GaX3>SbX5>SnX4>AsX5>ZnX2>HgX2. Cseizert (talk) 15:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

NPOV??
After reading through the article, I do not see where the POV issue is. I would like someone to show me where the offending text lies--or better yet, fix the alleged problem. Otherwise, I'm going to remove the POV tag. toll_booth (talk) 16:53, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Name change?
I noticed that the Brønsted–Lowry acid/base page is named a little differently. Maybe it would be better to change the name of one or the other to make them match? That would mean changing this one to "Lewis acid-base theory" or changing the other to "Brønsted–Lowry acids and bases" EricWesBrown (talk) 03:32, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Which type of bond is not involve? Muhammad Ahsan Nadeem (talk) 03:11, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

The first picture can be found/sourced by this link (below)
http://www.meta-synthesis.com/webbook/01_intro/lab_ga.jpg

I found that picture while searching Google Images...since the first picture in this article needs a reference, would that link qualify as a reference to the picture included in the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andise1 (talk • contribs) 02:07, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Also, can the quality of that image be improved. It is too blurred. Sayamsethi (talk) 04:13, 11 April 2019 (UTC)

Contradictory
The direction of the arrow is from the Lewis base toward the Lewis acid.

Me3B←NH3



The sentence does not accurately describe the second "equation", only the first. What gives? 84.227.252.224 (talk) 08:56, 14 October 2014 (UTC)
 * The arrow in the second is a normal reaction arrow (reactants on left, products on right); the surrounding text notes that it's the pair of dots that's the actual bond on both sides of the equation. The text you quoted is solely about the first complex itself (not a reaction). I overhauled the wording; let me know if it's self-consistent and clear/correct now. DMacks (talk) 05:02, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

Critique on Lewis acids and bases
The article's information comes form cited textbooks and reference books written in the late 90's and the early 2000's. The sources are neutral. A comparison between Lewis A&B and Brønsted-Lowry is drawn, and a link is provided to the Brønsted-Lowry page. All the links I clicked on were working and there was no detected plagiarism: no phrases sounded too similar or close together to raise any red flags. Arc32890 (talk) 16:17, 11 September 2017 (UTC)Arc32890

Please clarify "Me"
Can someone please add a clarification to the article for what Me stands for (as used in things like Me3B←NH3)? -- Hops Splurt (talk) 13:23, 11 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi Hops Splurt Ive not clarified Me But i've clarified what Me3B is by adding a link to its corresponding Wiki Page. --Newtdog402 (talk) 16:23, 17 February 2018 (UTC)


 * Aha. Trimethylborane, with the Me standing for Methyl. Thanks for the update. --Hops Splurt (talk) 16:56, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Lewis acid vs. oxydant
Hello. I think it would be good to add a paragraph about the difference between Lewis acid and oxydant (or between Lewis base and reducer). I'd do it, but when I think of it I'm not sure if this difference actually exists. It's often said that a Lewis acid-base reaction doesn't modify the oxidation state of the involved species, and involves covalent bonding / electron doublets (as opposed to redox reactions, where an electron is transferred, modifying the oxidation state and involving ionic bonding). But the oxidation state is just a modelling concept. So is the distinction between ionic and covalent bonding: AFAIK, at the fundamental level, there's no such thing as ionic vs. covalent bonding. This distinction is a convenient way to approach the behaviour of species, sometimes by attributing them a charge, sometimes by considering that the charge is shared. This leads me to the idea that the distinction between redox and Lewis acid-base is purely a modelling thing, not a fundamental/physical difference. I'd like to know if I missed something before writing on it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.86.104.114 (talk) 13:10, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

— Assignment last updated by Ruticzon (talk) 23:41, 10 June 2022 (UTC)